The Many Deaths of Ms Croft
by eyeteeth
Summary: An exploration of the thing Lara does more often than anything else--die.
1. Her Biggest Fan

_Bloody hell._ Poorly-aimed automatic fire sparked off of the grated metal floor to Lara's right, sending thrumming ricochets careening around the room. Flinching, Lara took off at a dead run and leapt into the diving pool which Bartoli's men were using to access the wreck of the Maria Dora. Turbulent trails marked where the crime lord's goons were still trying to get off a good shot--one of them punched into Lara's calf, forcing a bubbly shriek of pain from her. Gritting her teeth, Lara kicked and thrashed at the water, pushing herself deeper into the pool. _There--beneath the plane!_ Swimming franticlly, the explorer put the sea plane floating in the pool between her and the gunmen, and came up gasping for air. The salt water burned the gash in her leg, and her face screwed in a grimace as she allowed her fingers to probe the wound. _Can't stay here all day--and I can't get out of the pool._ Pushing away visions of her own bullet-riddled body splashing back into the water amidst her screams and sprays of blood, Lara looked around desperately. 

_There--an access tunnel!_ Taking a deep breath, Lara flipped in the water and kicked her way down to the bottom of the pool, then turned and swam along the bottom until she reached the opening. Stray shots occasionally plunked against the metal flooring beneath her, but deflection and the low light kept her relatively safe. The light levels dimmed even further once she entered the tunnel, but she swam on as quickly as she could--the wound, the cold water, and her own fear were sapping her strength. She needed to surface quickly; her lungs were burning already. 

A minute later, it felt like molten rock had been poured down her throat. _Sweet God, I don't want to drown!_ On the verge of panic, she kicked upwards and began swimming as quickly as she could along the ceiling. Fighting to keep her lungs from drawing in breath, her lips drew back in a frightened grimace. _Can't go back, I'll drown before I make it--please, let there be an air pocket!_

Unable to hold it any longer, Lara's breath left her in a terrified scream--just as her hand splashed out of the water. A moment later, Lara was gasping in lungfuls of stale air, her cheek pressed against the low ceiling as she sobbed in relief. It took her several moments to realize that the water had gained a current, which was slowly pulling her along. Her bleeding calf protested at the thought of swimming back the way she'd come; she'd never make it, she knew, and they'd eventually find her water-logged body bobbing against the ceiling of the tunnel. _Ever forward._

Allowing herself to be carried forward, Lara strained her eyes against the near-total darkness for nearly a minute before bumping into the far end of the air pocket. Looking down, she could just barely make out the outline of the tunnel where it submerged again--which meant that there was light and, hopefully, air further on down. Suppressing a shudder as she filled her lungs for a second time, she plunged into the water again and swam with the current down the tunnel. _Bloody hell, that's fast!_ Peering ahead through the dimly-lit water, Lara thought she noted a wavering quality to the light. The current was dragging her along more quickly now, to the point that she stopped swimming with it and put out a hand to slow herself slightly. _It wouldn't do to smack into a wall-- _

--Oh, shit! The light filtering into the tunnel was definitely strobing, and now Lara could see why: the water was being pulled through the tunnely by a set of giant fans! One was set right behind the other, rotating in the opposite direction but planed so that the two fans could work together to circulate the water more efficiently. Heart thumping, Lara turned about and began to swim against the current as best she could--but it was too strong! _I will not end up as someone's fish bait!_ she raged, to cover her fear. Glancing around, she spotted some sort of access door with a thick handle, three feet forward of the first blade. _There's just enough room, if I'm quick..._ Icewater shot through her veins as she tried not to think about what would happen if she weren't. Allowing the current to carry her, Lara used hand motions to guide herself against the wall. Watching the fans in morbid fascination as she was pulled along the tunnel, she noted that the fans completed a rotation about once a second. 

_Now!_ Sticking out her good leg, Lara braced herself against the handle and spread her hands wide along the ceiling to keep from getting pulled loose. Then, working carefully but quickly, she hooked her foot through the handle and tugged. 

It was rusted! _The blasted thing had rusted shut!_ Lungs pressing against her ribs with Olypmic strength, Lara tugged as hard as she dared, trying to work loose the hinges. Harder, harder--_Oh God!_

Lara's hands slipped against the ceiling as, in desperation, she pulled at the door harder than she should have. Screaming into the water with terror, Lara tried to grab something--anything--but the current was too great; it sucked her against the fan, pulling her legs and one arm through the wide gap between the blades. Before she could struggle away from the propeller, the second fan closed on her protruding limbs. 

All her air had already been expended, but Lara tried to shriek anyway as her left arm and leg were ripped away and sucked through. Flailing, her other hand caught on the door handle, jerking her off of the center of the fan. The fast-streaming water quickly pulled her through up to her hips, which were crushed and chopped apart as her body racked in horrified sobs. Slipping further, she found herself jammmed sideways betweent he blades of the first fan, with one breast on either side of it and streams of viscera coiling and catching in the blades. Helpless, Lara could do nothing but watch as as was scissored in half down the center of her chest, her vision mercilessly clear as the fans quickly swept away the whorling gouts of blood. Finally sucked all the way through, Lara's throat mindlessly continued to work in screamless horror as mangled chunks of her own body floated through her dimming vision.


	2. Playtime for Kitty

Lara had seen more than her share of the impossible, but it still formed a cold lump in her belly every time she witnessed it. She had fought the ressurected bones of ancient warriors, brass golems given life through magic jewels, mummified warriors which had not seen the light of day for a thousand years, and countless other horrors; even so, the massive stone jaguars which--impossibly--patrolled the hallways below her with heavy, thudding steps sent an adrenalized rush of fear through her. 

Long ago, she had deduced that the fear was more instinctual than logical; such guardians as these were obviously empowered by energies that hailed from realms far outside the possibility of human understanding--and humanity's greatest fear has always been the unknown. Therefore, she ignored the urge to shriek and bolt, to skulk away and search for an alternate entrance that couldn't possibly exist, to retreat to her mansion--far, far away--and hide beneath her bed. Logically, there had to be a way to circumvent the stone jaguars; otherwise, the founders of the pre-Mombassan temple complex Lara was exploring would not have been able to perform their ceremonies. If she searched hard enough, she would find the clues that-- 

There--each of the jaguars appeared to have been carved from a single block of obsidian, and then adorned with jewels and beaten gold. At first glance, the decorative valuables appeared to have been arranged individually, no two of the volcanic cats alike. On closer study, Lara noted that each jaguar had a large gemstone at the base of the skull, usually part of some sort of collar or headpiece, but occasionally simply inset in the cat's obsidian 'skin'--likely, that similarity held the key to bypassing the guardians. To test her theory, Lara set her knapsack down and pulled from it the crossbow she'd brought, loading it with a steel-tipped bolt. Sighting through the scope, she drew a bead on the nearest feline's jewel and, after steadying her breathing, fired. 

With a dull _crack_, the bolt bounced off of the jewel and broke against the stone wall. Studying the jaguar again through the scope, Lara saw that the impact had pushed the jewel further in, almost like some sort of button. The giant cat faltered for a moment, then abruptly sat on its haunches and remained stock-still. Satisfied, Lara reloaded her crossbow and sought out the next closest guardian cat, depressing its jewel with a carefully-aimed shot; within five minutes, she'd deactivated all the cats in view. 

At one time, the entire temple complex had been underground, but the vagrancies of time and erosion had thrust it, roofless, to the surface. Now, Lara leapt lightly to the temple floor from the jungle above, and began to search for the entrance to the lower levels while ignoring the way her heart leapt to her throat every time she looked at one of the gigantic, still cats. It was the supernatural fear which made it seem that the nearest one had shifted position since the last time she'd glanced at it nervously; the mind playing tricks on her as it subconsciously noted the existence of magicks which had no place on this level of reality. 

_Oh, bloody hell..._ Lara froze, her blood ice in her veins, as one of the jaguars--the first one she'd deactivated--slowly turned its head to look at her with its carefully-carved eyes. _Time-activated, the button only sets a timer and they come back to life after fifteen minutes or so and _sweet Mary it sees me! 

With a silent snarl, the huge cat leapt at Lara, who reacted instantly by performing a leap of her own, perpendicular to the feline's path. Kicking off the wall, she landed halfway on the jaguar and scrabbled for purchase; the jaguar whirled, trying to catch her in its bladed maw, but she pulled herself up on top of it and smashed the jewel-button with her fist. Obediently, the beast sat; Lara slid down its back and landed on her feet. _Have to work quickly, the next one--shite!_ Even as the second cat rose to its feet, another began the slow head movements that meant it, too, would soon be active. _I can't keep them all down _and_ find the entrance. Time to rethink my approach._ Retreating, Lara searched for a way to get out of the maze-like corridors--a climbable section of wall, an overhanging vine, _anything._

Focused on escape, her only warning was the sudden scratch of stone on stone as one of the obsidian felines pounced. Lara gave a terrified yelp as the cat smashed her to the floor, slashing claws narrowly missing her. The jaguar's teeth snapped at her, but she managed to twist out of the way and scrabble backwards; but before she could make good on her escape, the cat sprung forward and pinned her shoulder beneath one massive paw. It brought a hind leg up to rake her belly open, but fear-induced speed allowed Lara to draw the pistol on her right thigh from its holster and shoot away most of its clawed foot. That maneuver, however, allowed the jaguard to clamp its jaws around Lara's throat--and there it froze, as the fingers of Lara's other hand slapped at the huge jewel atop its neck, pushing it halfway home. 

Whimpering and sobbing, Lara strained to push the button further, but she just couldn't reach far enough. Her pistol clattered to the ground as she tried to reach it with her other hand, but it was no use--the jaguar's neck was too thick. She pushed herself against the obsidian cat, groaning as she tried for the centimeter of reach that would save her life--but her foot slipped on a patch of grass that had grown between the ancient flagstones. The great jewel clicked back into its upwards position as her fingers slipped off of it. 

With a sickening crunch, the great cat bit through Lara's throat, its teeth nicking against her spine. A coppery rush filled her mouth and nose as it gave a shake of its head, tearing away most of her neck; an arterial gout of blood slopped against its chin and splashed back against Lara's face and chest as she clawed convulsively at the jaguar. She tried to breathe, but the blood pouring from her neck flooded into her lungs; she tried to scream, but her voicebox was no longer connected to her body. The only sound was the wet slurp of blood as Lara rolled over and tried to crawl away, but the jaguar skewered her with a dismissive swipe of its huge claws. 

Almost casually, the beast pulled away an arm with its razor teeth, then began to chew on Lara in earnest as she kicked and struggled. Ripping up a mawful of intestines, it shook its head again and slopped the viscera everywhere before taking a second bite. Lara's jaws clenched open and shut in silent screams as it halfway ripped her apart; she watched in horror as it began chewing at her ribcage before her vision finally dimmed away. The obsidian jaguar continued tearing at her body mindlessly, until she was no more than a slathering of gore on the stones.


	3. A Quiet Evening at Home

The echo of squealing tires had not yet died out by the time Lara reached the west window of her bedroom, having rolled off of her queen-sized waterbed and raced across the length of her spacious bedroom without even bothering to belt the china-blue silk kimono she wore, nor removing her half-moon reading glasses. Behind her, a worn copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ flapped shut as it slid to the floor, but it did not even occur to her to curse the inconvenience as she spied the vehicle that had burst through the gates of her mansion and skidded to a stop in her drive. There would be plenty of time to find her place in the novel later; but it wasn't every day that one was called on to entertain murderous thugs employed by the former _capo tutti capo_ of the old-world Italian mafia. Turning, she pounded back across her bedroom towards the three-drawer oaken nightstand on the other side of her bed, glasses still perched on the edge of her nose. She found time, however, to wrap her kimono more decently about herself. 

Around her neck was a simple gold chain, attatched to which was a small brass key. A common man might notice nothing more than those sparse facts, especially given that the key hung between Lara's breasts. A more discerning gentleman might note that the key's teeth were many, varied, and tightly-packed; the mere three centimeters of the key's length contained nearly fifty peaks and depressions along the ridge of its length, and had a number of bumps and dips along both sides of its thickness. Someone versed in the lower criminal enterprises might despair of ever picking the lock to which this key was mated, and this lock was installed in the upper drawer of Lara's nightstand--oak, as noted before, and finely cut and polished, but utterly unable to stop the axe of a determined thief, save that the oak exterior was backed by hardened titanium plating. Only the upper drawer of this extraordinary nightstand was what it appeared to be; the lower drawer was even more difficult to open than the upper, because the lower drawer was not a drawer at all; merely a facade, designed for both aesthetic and security purposes. This lower 'drawer' concealed a sophisticated array of sensors, which measured the singular frequency of electric impulse that was responsible for instructing a human heart to beat. If any heartbeat other than Lara's approached within thirty centimeters of the nightstand, a cloud of gas would be released. This gas was very expensive, very illegal, and _very_ lethal. 

The reason for all this security was that the top drawer contained treasures which the world of man was not yet matured enough to bear the re-discovery of. Some artifacts were, of course, too large to be stored here; but Lara's rather unique sense of pride convinced her to store such items here as would fit: among other oddities, a stone which allowed its possessor to control an indestructible clay golem; a golden scarab which could be utilized in ritual mummification to create undead warriors of considerable skill and constitution; a chunk of worn stone with faded and unreadable inscriptions, which could call down bolts of lightning similar in magnitude of energy release to a small nuclear bomb; and the key to Lara's gun closet. 

The heartbeat sensor concealed in the lower part of the nightstand noted a slight increase in the frequency of Lara's heartbeat, but it was well within the parameters for not killing intruders horribly. Throwing the nightstand's drawer open, she fumbled inside as her front door, downstairs, was kicked open by someone's massive boot. More sounds of destruction followed, as the intruding thugs smashed everything in sight. Knocking aside several priceless artifacts, Lara finally came up with the gun closet key; spinning around, she took off at at a dead run, her bare foot kicking back to slam the drawer shut. Rounding the bed, she nearly skidded into the reinforced door of the gun closet, fumbling with the heavy iron key. 

"C'mon, c'mon--Dammit!" she cursed as the key slipped from her fingers. Lara's world was neatly divided into two parts: home, and not at home. Home was safety, where she could relax and not worry about the dangers she encountered in the outside world. The pounding feet on the stairs down the hall clashed violently with her ingrained assumption that no one could harm her, here. The conflict brought shaking hands, shortness of breath, and a pounding heart. Scooping up the key, she jammed it in the lock--and then rolled out of the way as her bedroom door was knocked from its hinges. A shattering blast of shotgun pellets caromed from the closet door, rebounding it open, but Lara ignored the weaponry inside and instead sprinted for the north window. There were five armed men in her bedroom; if she entered the closet, she'd be a fish in a very small barrel. Instead, she dived out the third-story window in a spray of glass and bullets. 

Sharp edges ripped at her kimono, undoing the hasty knot she'd used to close it, and blood streamed from the arm and shoulder she'd used to break the window. Shouts of surprise followed her as she plummeted through the air, tumbling out of control to slam into the unforgiving surface of her crystal-clear outdoor pool. Momentum carried her nearly to the bottom of its twelve-foot depth; her lungs kicked against her ribs as she turned about and swam for the surface, as she hadn't had time to gather a breath before plunging into the water. Breaking the surface, she hauled herself over the edge, scraping her bare breast on the stone edge; she ignored the pain, as she ignored the cuts in her arm and the chlorine tingling in her eyes. Miraculously, her reading glasses had managed to cling to her face; water beaded on them, making it difficult to see. Rather than pausing to remove them, Lara turned and sprinted towards her hedge maze, narrowly avoiding another shotgun blast. Two more blasts tore the ground around her before she made it to the maze's concealment, one of them grazing her leg with a single pellet. Instructions shouted in italian reached her ears as she lost herself in the high green walls. 

Sweat coursed down her body, even in the early autumn cool of her England estate. The mown grass flooring this section of the hedge maze was cool against her legs and buttocks as she sat, gasping for air and considering her options. She was unarmed and nearly naked, facing at least fifteen heavily-armed men. _And several dogs_, she realized as she heard a distant, rough bark. _Sounds like wolfhounds. This maze won't help me for long._ Pushing to her feet, she pulled her now-tattered kimono about herself once again, but the belt had been pulled free during her escape. Setting her lips in a thin line, she set down her plan of action. The first order of business was to get back to the gun closet. With luck, she'd at least have time to pull on some underwear; the kimono wasn't going to do much for her reputation. _Not that any of _these_ blokes are going to survive to tell about it._ Next, she'd need to force the thugs to come to _her._ The maze might actually be best for that; the men would follow the dogs, and the dogs would come straight for her. After that, it would be a matter of guerilla warfare. She'd have to hit the dogs first; it wouldn't do to allow them to track her movement after her initial ambush. The obstacle course would be perfect; it provided ample cover and concealment, and she knew every inch of it. The thugs would be slowed by the obstacles, allowing her to pick them off at her leisure. 

Climbing to her feet, she pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose and set off down the hedge corridor. As she went, she listened; the hit men should soon reach the entrance to the hedge maze, so that the dogs could track her down. She shuddered as she imagined the huge beasts finding her, knocking her to the ground, ripping her to pieces with their powerful jaws... _But where _are_ they? Surely they've found the maze by now, what could be keeping them?_

The van which had crashed through her gates was still there as she peeked out of the hedge maze entrance, its engine ticking coolly. No one in sight; hopefully, Winston had gotten himself clear. Sprinting across the lawn, Lara hugged herself against the ivy-covered brick of her mansion's front wall, kimono slipping open. Moving slowly and carefully, she crabwalked sideways along the wall until she reached the marble-columned front step--still, she saw no one. Even the wolf hounds had gone quiet. Bartolli's men must be stupider than she'd thought; perhaps they'd found the far entrance of the hedge maze, and were waiting for her to emerge there. _No matter. It won't help me to find them when I've nothing to defend myself with._ Every muscle in her body was strung tight as she pushed open the front door, but no hail of gunfire greeted her. _To hell with it. Caution's never gotten me anywhere._ The torn flesh in her calf protested, but did not fail as she ran quickly and quietly into her mansion and mounted the stairs, retracing the intruder's steps. 

There. A whisper of sound, the movement of clothing on wood. The linen closet across the hall from Lara's bedroom was open. To late to turn and run; a man's booted foot appeared at the edge of the door, and the muzzle of an automatic rifle above that. He would cut her down before she was halfway back to the stair. Leaping into the air, she lashed out with a hard kick, slamming the linen closet door into the would-be ambusher and knocking him back with a grunt. Shouts from inside--there were more, hiding in the closet, but no matter. She was in the bedroom; the closet opened behind her with a ripping burst of autofire, but she was beyond the doorway and protected by the wall. Screaming to each other in italian, the men were tumbling into the hall--Lara was at the door of her gun closet, the key in her hand--Bartolli's men were tangled in the linen--she was inside! A shotgun blast powdered the plaster wall as Lara turned to the shotgun rack to grab-- 

--Nothing. The gun closet was empty. 

No wonder they hadn't searched for her; they knew she'd be back, to trap herself in the emptied closet. It must have been quite a job to move so much weaponry so quickly; but they'd done it, nonetheless. Lara's heart leapt into her throat as a handful of men crowded her doorway; she turned, eyes wide behind her reading glasses. 

The shotgun's roar filled the small room, chewing her low in the gut and throwing her against the far wall. Clutching at her belly, a wail of pain tore itself from her throat as she slid to the floor, framed in blood. Slippery blood filled her hands; she gasped for air, tearing agony throbbing through her body with each breath. Something cold touched her temple, dizzily, she looked up to find the barrel of a gun centered on her forehead. A chill swept through her body, and she thought of her father. Someone said something she didn't understand, and the gun turned to point at the ceiling. Another of the hit men pushed his way forward--this one was dressed in an Armani business suit, rather than the rough clothing affected by the others. He knelt in front of Lara, putting finger beneath her chin so that she would look at him. His other hand held a large automatic pistol, plated in gleaming nickel. 

"Mizz Croft," he said in a heavy Italian accent, "Mizter Bartolli, he sends his greetings to you, the killer of his father." 

"Please," Lara gasped, blinking at the tears running down her cheeks to pool against the reading glasses before sliding down to her chin. "If h-he wants money, I can p-pay--" 

"Mizter Bartolli, he has money. He also has you to thank for his new position as the head of the Bartolli family." The pistol stroked Lara's throat, trailing down past her collarbone. "That's why we didn't bring any knives, do you see? With a knife, you would live for maybe hours, you would not be able to scream the whole time." Lara tried to follow the pistol's barrel with her eyes as it traced lazy designs around her nipple, but it disappeared beneath the curve of her breast. Her buttocks felt tacky, as the blood pooling beneath them began to coagulate. "With just guns? You will live maybe another five minutes." Her chest heaved as the cold metal ran down her belly an inch from the puckered wound, following the inner ridge of her hip further south. "Five minutes, you will scream the whole time. In the Bartolli family, if you can still scream when you die, it is because we _like_ you." Lara opened her mouth, but the pistol's sharp report drowned out anything she might have said. She screeched, drawing her knees up and clutching between her legs with both hands as she slid over onto her side. 

"Wait!" she cried, but a hail of shotgun pellets tore through her shoulder and turned her words into a choked groan. Uncurling herself, she tried to crawl forward with one arm, with the other hand clamped on the tattered flesh of her crotch; a burst of autofire stitched a line of screams down her exposed hip and thigh, flopping her over onto her back. Two more shotgun blasts tore her belly, stuffing her into the corner of the closet floor and wall with most of her kimono balled up behind her. Unable to even think through the pain, she simply howled and pounded a fist against the wall behind her as more rips of automatic fire tore apart her shins and feet; when a shotgun blasted away her flailing hand and arm, she did not notice. 

The gunshots paused, as the hit men stopped to reload. "You know," one of them said in Italian, "I thought this cunt might give us trouble. The way she took out the Boss, I thought she would be really tough." With a metallic snap, he slapped the thirty-round clip home into the well of his rifle and yanked the charging handle. Lara gazed at him through the salt-crusted reading glasses, her mouth twisted in a rictus of pain and fear as her breath grunted in panic. "But she is just another bitch," the hit man concluded, "and she dies just like anybody else." Two automatic rifles, three shotguns, and a pistol leveled on one target. Lara raised her mangled hand in supplication, trying to beg through wheezes of pain as fresh tears sprang from her eyes. 

"Badly." 

The small room shook with the volume of fire produced. Lara jerked and flopped, her screams and cries unheard as her body burst apart in a spray of viscera. Lead punched through her chest, throwing a cough of blood from her lips; a shank of bone and torn flesh that had once been a lower leg jumped and skittered away, severed completely by the lethal hail. Blood gouted up as rounds splattered her throat away before moving up to blow her jaw away in a spray of teeth and blood. A shredding blast of pellets kicked through her cheek, just beside her nose, carrying most of her brain out the back of her head in a grey sneeze. The pistol and rifles clicked empty, as one of the shotguns had a moment earlier. There was a moment of deafening silence before the last shotgun emptied its remaing two shells into Lara's face, splashing it into an unrecognizable mass. Shattered by the impact, her reading glasses kicked away and spun across the floor with a tinkle. The leaking shambles that had been Lara Croft lay spread in a pool of thickening blood, staining the tatters of her kimono. Several feet away, the cracked lenses of her glasses winked in the light, except where spatters of blood clouded the glass. 


	4. In the Desert, They Won't Remember Your ...

Putting a hand to her brow to shade her eyes, Lara sat up and sighed contentedly before reaching over and grabbing the sports bra lying beside her. She was no stranger to the hardships of a frugal life--after all, the millions of British pounds in interest pouring into her accounts ever year meant nothing in the wild lands beyond civilization, where she sought treasures of old. However, Lara's mindset was different from that of a less monied person. Urgency was rarely a factor in her life, except in times of dire, direct peril; for the most part, she was usually content to slide through the days and hours easily and unnoticed, pausing here and there when something caught her interest. She was apt to suddenly stop in the middle of something that required her immediate attention, in order to enjoy some small distraction that others might call petty in the face of other matters. Here she was in the middle of the Arizona desert, miles from the nearest prying eyes--well, _human_ eyes; that scorpion was certainly getting a show--and the thought had struck her almost an hour ago, as she mounted the top of a dry, smooth cliff, that she hadn't found time to laze beneath her sunlamp in over a month. Enjoying the feel of the flat stone against her buttocks, and the newly-bronzed gleam of her skin, she stretched the bra over her head and pulled it down around her breasts. She was far from witnesses at the moment--but the hike she had planned would change that. Wriggling into the blue-camo spandex leggings she'd chosen, she tied on her boots and strapped her pack onto her back, ready to resume the journey she'd begun in a temple in India. 

An hour's steady marching brought her past a sign that said, "WARNING: PROPERTY US GOVERNMENT. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT." A properly intimidating sentiment, to be sure, but all the soldiers in the American Army couldn't completely cover the wide perimeter of this facility; armed force backed by lethal intent was less a factor in its protection that was the intense isolation. Certainly, a vehicle traveling this close would have been noticed--but a lone woman on foot? Impossible that she would have made it this far without collapsing from exhaustion. The chances of some soldier on patrol stumbling onto her were so vanishingly small as to be discounted as impossible. It was with confidence that Lara walked along the base of the tall cliff to her left; on her right, a steep rise gave way to a sun-baked plateau. 

A rounded chip of supersonic metal smashed into Lara's head, just above her right ear; the impact caused it to to flatten so that it created a shockwave within her skull forceful enough to explode way much of the left half of her face. Flesh, bone, and near-liquid chunks of blood-streaked brain hit the cliff wall with a dull splatter; Lara stumbled in confusion, horribly conscious but not quite alive. One eye bounced to the rocky desert floor; the other ran with tears of pain that the adventurer was not fully away of. Lara's shoulder and the remains of her head bumped into the cliff a moment later as her body instinctively tried to right itself; her nervous system fell into shambles and she stumbled to the ground, hair torn from her ponytail-holder streaking against the rock as it clung in the sticky blood. She made small noises in her throat, the remnants of a scream that had never reached her conscious mind. Some four hundred yards away, a patrol sergeant clapped a private on the back, congratulating him for his sharp eye and precise aim. Lara's newly-tanned body stirred and rustled as a tacky pool of spreading crimson leaked from her head. 

"Wonder what she was doing out here," the private asked, standing behind his sergeant as the noncom leaned over roll Lara onto her back. The front, left quarter of her head was simply gone, scooped out and vomited all over the rock. The sergeant grabbed her rucksack and sliced through the straps, tossing the leather bag a few yards away. Lara's remaining eye slowly focused on him, and the remnants of her brain struggled to put together a question to ask him. 

"Don't matter none," the sergeant grunted. "Get her boots, son, and pick up that ruck she was carrying when you're finished." Knife in hand, he grabbed the front of her sports bra and yanked it down, stretching the neckline to bunch beneath her breasts. His eyes didn't linger on her body, the way they might have on something he considered to be a human being, as he lifted, pulling the sports bra away from her skin and arching her back into the air. Lara blinked as her field of view suddenly shifted, then blinked again as blood ran into her eye. As the private knelt to undo her boots, the noncom made two quick cuts in the folds of material in his hand, and the sports bra suddenly snapped away from her body. Taking a crabwalk step sideways, the grizzled sergeant began pulling the nylon material of Lara's stretch pants down around her hips, tossing the ruined bra behind him. Vaguely, Lara felt a wave of indignation brush through her, and anger at whoever was daring to touch her so. The private finished the boots and peeled off her socks, then both grabbed a side of the stretch pants' waist and skinned them off of Lara's legs. Quickly and efficiently, the pair stuffed her clothing and equipment into her rucksack, then tossed the whole bundle into a burn bag for later incineration. 

They turned to leave, the sergeant lighting up a cigarette. Behind them, Lara's naked corpse twitched and jerked, her throat convulsively swallowing with a rhythmic pattern of dry clicks. By the time the coyotes found her, only her right foot was still making small shivers. Her skin was ash-pale as they sniffed her, licking at the bloody wound in her head; darker discolorations on the high parts of her exposed body marked where the sun had burnt her dead flesh during the day. 

The coyotes feasted on her for a week. When they were finished, nothing remained to show that she'd ever been there. 


	5. Fun with Lethal Security Measures

Wiping her hands on the skintight leather of her outfit, Lara studied the control panel and blinked away a bead of sweat behind her wireframe tinted glasses. Carefully extending a foot, she steadied herself before touching her probes to the soldered board. Glancing "up", she looked out through the vent a foot away and saw that the thermographic sensor just outside it hadn't moved. If she tried to crawl through the vent right now, the autogun connected to the sensor would chew her to bloody pieces. And, if she weren't careful, she'd accidentally burn through her line with the soldering probe and drop herself headfirst down a hundred-foot venilation duct. Looking "down", she checked the D-rings which secured her line to a support column toward the ceiling of the duct and silently wished she'd brought a longer line--the end of it was a bare thirty centimeters from the lockable ascent/descent harness that suspended her, upside-down, in the shaft. 

Biting back a curse, Lara moved with meticulous slowness to test the next solder joint. At the same time, exhiliration swept over her body, and she had to stop for a moment to steady herself. Suspended between life and death, on the brink of both disaster and unimaginable reward--this was living! Shivering slighty, she twisted to get a better position, relishing the way the smooth leather hugged and moved against her body. Though she wore it for its practicality, the leather catsuit was the most sensual piece of clothing Lara owned--the tight fittedness of the outfit meant that it had to be worn with nothing beneath it in order to achieve the silence of movement Lara required; and the sensation of the leather sliding against her naked skin sent a constant shock of the erotic through her. 

And so, despite the relatively cool air of the shaft, Lara felt her hot blood skimming through her body. Breathing shakily, she touched the probe to the next solder joint--and was rewarded my a twitch of motion from the thermosensor! Breaking the connection quickly, Lara twisted her legs up in the ascent/descent line to keep herself from bumping into the sides of the narrow shaft, and tucked the still-smoking solder into a bicep pocket before hugging herself tightly in the darkness. Ignoring the searing pain of the hot probe, she struggled to keep her breathing even and quiet as the joy of success washed up and down her, causing tiny quivers that moved the silky leather of her outfit against her body. For nearly a minute, she shook and jerked silently as the orgasm sent waves from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Rivulets flowed up her belly toward her breasts, and slipped between the cheeks of her buttocks before emerging and tracing a trail up her spine. 

After a long moment, she slowly relaxed, pulse still pounding. Taking slow, deep breaths, she mentally steadied herself before pulling out the cooling solder probe and flicking it back on. Peering at the board, Lara counted the joints. _Was it the the fourth joint--or the fifth? ...The fifth, I think._ Pushing a bead of solder down the board, she slowly spread it until it made a connection at the fifth joint. Another pulse of excitement ran through her as the thermosensor twisted and moved-- 

--_right towards me!_

"Oh, shit!" she gasped aloud, scrubbing at the solder with the probe to break the connection, but her efforts merely spread the blob around. With a piercing alarm beep, the thermographic sensor locked onto her signature, and Lara's pulse pounded in her throat again--this time, in fear. Gimballing with deadly surety, the autogun connected to the sensor spund towards the grate as Lara tried to right herself within the duct's narrow confines. 

She was still reaching up the line when the autogun sprayed a burst into her belly, splattering her lower back against the wall of the duct as the rounds ripped open her body. Lara's agonized shriek echoed into the hallway, but was drown out by the hammering roar of the second burst, which ripped apart her abdomen and spine. Wailing, Lara grasped at the coils of intestine that flopped out of her shredded body as the autogun, determining that she was no longer a threat, turned back to cover the hallway. 

"Oh God--God, _help me!_" she screamed, her legs flopped in front of her as she hung, doubled over by the support of the harness, helpless and bleeding. Screaming again, wordlessly, she pulled at the tangle of guts sliding against her face and tried to push them back into herself through the ragged tear in her belly. They flopped out again, and Lara began to sob weakly, clutcing at the viscera. 

There was a sudden jerk in the line, and Lara's sob caught in her throat with a gulp. Looking up, she had one moment of terror before the line, lubricated by her blood, slipped through the harness and let her plunge, shrieking, down the shaft to crash in a boneless, leaking heap at the bottom. 


	6. Stone Killer

Lara thought that the four-meter-high statue standing atop the pedastal in front of her was intended to represent Kali, the goddess of destruction, but she wasn't sure--time, even in this still place, had worn the many inscriptions on its base to mere impressions. The base must have been half a millennia old, though the statue itself was obviously younger by orders of magnitude; the gold rings piercing the nipples of the _decidedly_ feminine statue's breasts had not stained the surrounding stone with corrosion, and the statue itself was crisp and detailed. Its face was beautiful, prominent cheekbones leading down past full lips into a tapered chin, eyes lidded beneath heavy lashes--the detail was _incredible._ Atop its head was a strangely-shaped crown; six arms spread from its girlish shoulders, each bearing a curved steel sword with handguards made from human skulls--some stacked two or three high, razor-sharp blade punched through the bone, others sporting only a single trophy. Though its face bore no expression, the statue's hips were canted in a manner that could be either inviting or defiant, though Lara couldn't imagine a creature with enough chutzpah to accept the invitation or test the defiance. Its vagina was idealized, bare and perfect, and slightly swollen--as if something about the viewer enticed the statue, despite its resolve; its legs were slightly spread, and it balanced on the balls of its unshod feet, as if it were about to leap down and... who knows? Kill, make love, dance, anything. That barely-repressed energy, the obvious sexual tension, the promise of death in its massive blades, the utter serenity of its face--the artist, whoever he or she had been, was a master to rival Michealangelo. 

_Too bad I can't show it to Burke and have him compare,_ Lara sighed, thinking of an art critic she sometimes worked with. Occasionally, during her adventures, Lara would dig around in her pack and come up with an old, durable Nikon camera, and snap a picture of something particularly interesting; but for the most part, the most anyone would know of the secret places she'd seen were what they read in her deliberately vauge memoirs. Such sites--such sights--were to be reserved, she felt, for those who had risked the dangers inherent in reaching them; otherwise, Lara herself would be nothing but a glorified tour guide. 

_It _must_ be Kali,_ Lara mused, reaching up to stroke a slow finger across the smoothly-toned belly. Its navel, tear drop-shaped, bore a tiny gold stud tipped with emerald. Looking closely, Lara marveled to see that the stone 'skin' of the statue actually bunched against the piercing; the hands, each wrapped around a leather-strapped hilt, were carved with tiny wrinkles creasing the knuckles; the ears were deliberately shaped and folded--such detail must have taken _decades_ to complete. So much time and attention dedicated to a goddess of destruction indicated that she'd found a temple built by some sort of death cult--not a violent sect, probably, given the fact that they'd numbered at least one gifted artist in their ranks. The common religion didn't view Kali as a force of evil; she was merely a counterpoint for the forces of creation, somewhat reminiscent of the _yang_ described by Chino-Korean dualist philosophy. In the tunnels and rooms below, she'd probably find burial and preparation chambers, as well as the usual living and worship areas. 

"I'll never find out if I don't get on with it," she murmured to herself, tearing her eyes away from the beautiful idol. The room that contained it was circular, built of rough-hewn stone which supported a variety of plant life--mainly various types of vines, though the floor sported tufts of thick, dry grass that grew knee-high. A Roman arch guarded the steps that led outside, to the mountaintop in northeastern India that had concealed this temple for countless centuries. Thousands of miles away, on the opposite side of the jungle-threaded country, lay the complex where, almost a year ago, Lara had discovered the first of the meteor fragments. Her current venture was exploration for its own sake; contrary to her media portrayal, she did not constantly hare off on wild quests involving powerful artifacts. Certainly, there were forces at work in the world that modern man knew nothing of and that ancient man had occasionally attempted to harness; but, more often than not, ancient man had failed miserably, and the clever traps and guardians he left behind usually protected naught but pretty, harmless baubles. Hopefully, she'd find such a bauble on this trip worthy of her collection; but more likely, she'd leave with nothing more--and nothing less--than journal entries and memories. 

_There._ Hidden beneath a mass of vines, Lara found a protruding shaft of carved stone, capped with gold tracery that formed a symbol she'd seen carved on ancient stones in the nameless village at the base of the mountain. When she'd asked about the meaning of the symbol, the rural folk had muttered the usual mumbo-jumbo about ancient secrets and terrible curses. Her laptop had provided a more specific answer: the symbol represented life, in a peculiar context--the connotation was that life was something that is to be given freely but never taken; it was intended, apparently, as a sort of scripture. A legend associated with the symbol related the tale of a man who begged an enemy to spare his life, then refused that enemy the same mercy some time later. So incensed were the gods at this man's lack of compassion that they slew him immediately, and reincarnated him as a worm to be ground under foot. 

Probably, Lara decided, the cap was merely decoration. The shaft itself was fitted carefully into the wall, and was obviously meant to be either pushed or pulled. Now that she knew where to look, Lara quickly discovered the outline of a door concealed by the mortarless seams of the room's construction. Testing the shaft mechanism gingerly, she found it could be pushed _or_ pulled; one direction would open the door, and the other would likely trigger some sort of trap. But which was which? The temple's builders would know, of course; this sort of two-way setup was fairly common in hidden constructions of this sort--those who were authorized to enter could do so, and those who were not would die a grisly death, and were often left as a warning to any that followed. A quick dig through her knapsack netted a small flashlight, which she used to carefully search the room for the usual suspects: floors which suddenly dropped into pits, spikes optional; spears flung by mechanical means from ports hidden in the wall; collapsing ceilings; swinging blades--the list went on, but there was a commonality in the variety, certain telltales that gave away the existence of a trap no matter what culture birthed the trapmaker. 

To no avail. If this room were trapped, it was in some subtle manner that Lara had never encountered. She began to consider the possibility that the mechanism wasn't trapped at all; the Indian peninsula'd had its share of wild-eyed killer cults through the ages, but few enough of those had the necessary patience or intelligence to build a room such as this, much less trap it. In the end, there was really only one way to find out. Lara glanced back; the statue still watched impassively over her, reflected sunlight blanching its nude form. Shrugging, she gripped the trigger shaft and flipped a mental coin. 

_It's a riddle,_ she realized a moment later. _The symbol--give life, but do not take it. It's a riddle; the symbol means life, and you can either give it--by pushing it--or take it, by pulling._ In horror, she stared at the shaft that she pulled just before inspiration struck. 

Stone ground against stone behind her; Lara whirled, hands dipping instinctively toward the Heckler & Kock pistols snapped into her thigh holsters. Part of the sound emmenated from the entrance doorway, beneath which a slab of floor was rising quickly--far too quickly for her to be able to escape through it. At her quickest, she might have made it halfway out--and then been crushed against the capstone as the slab closed off the exit. Light still trickled through vine-clogged vents in the ceiling; it was dimmer now than it had been, but there was still easily enough light to catch the details of the idol as its stone head turned to regard Lara. 

"Oh, bugger," she whispered. 

And then the statue surged forward, six blades singing in the still air. Lara yanked her triggers as she threw herself flat on her back and rolled away from the first two swords; the shots were sloppy, but her target was close enough that it didn't matter. Lara preferred hollowpoint rounds almost exclusively, since her targets were normally flesh and blood--or had been, at one time. Steel-jacketed rounds were likely to punch all the way through a target, leaving it wounded and possibly dying--but not quickly enough to save Lara herself. The soft-tipped hollowpoints tore gaping holes in living targets, knocking them down and keeping them there with massive internal damage. 

Except that _this_ time, her target's body was made of hand-carved granite. Lead splashed, knocking thumb-sized divots of stone from the statue but not even slowing it down as it spun to follow Lara, bringing its next pair of blades to bear even as it recovered from the strike made with the first two. With no room to maneuver in the small chamber, Lara dove forward between the idol's legs. Landing flat would have been painful and embarassing, so she twisted in mid-air to take the impact on her shoulder; curling herself sideways, she came to her feet behind the statue and raised her pistols. 

The third and bottom-most pair of blades snaked around as the statue crossed its lower arms in front of itself and punched the swords up through Lara's shoulders. Lara screamed in horror and pain, pistols dropping from nerveless fingers as the statue executed a complicated maneuver that let it turn around in place whil stile grasping the swords impaling the tresspasser. Lifting her up in the air, the goddess regarded Lara with stone eyes, tracing the tips of its four unoccupied swords along Lara's face and body as it studied her. 

"Oh, bloody hell," Lara sobbed; the skulls guarding the swords' pommels crushed against her painfully, and the blades from which most of her weight hung grated against bone and muscle as she was turned from side to side. Her feet kicked weakly, try to gain purchase against the statue's body. "Please," Lara begged, though her agony-riddled mind wasn't sure whom she might be begging, or for what. Mercy, or perhaps a quick death. "Please--no! Please! Don't!" she groaned as the statue extended its limbs to hold her at arm's length, arching her back as the impaling blades assumed a flatter angle. 

Kali granted Lara nothing. The tip of one blade stabed suddenly into her groin, drawing a throat-tearing scream. Lara kicked out, legs pumping convulsively as the statue drew the third blade up through her belly with deliberate care, stopping just below her breastbone. She choked, clenching her fingers helplessly as her body emptied itself of viscera, meters of slopping flesh splattering against the floor through the gash splitting her body. When she found her voice again, she shrieked wordlessly; her hands tried to reach forward and scoop her guts back into herself, but her shoulders were too ruined to allow her to do more than flop her arms. 

"Huhh," she panted, struggling to raise her head. The statue of Kali met her pleading gaze impassively, watching her with the same flat expression it had held for generation upon generation of solitude. Lara's breath came in pained grunts; she whined at the back of her throat as the idol shifted its weight, sending new waves of agony through her as her body swung gently. Blood loss was cooling her quickly; she shook uncontrollably as Kali slowly brought up another blade, holding the gory handguard before Lara's face. Lara understood, and sobs racked her; the skulls were of those who had come before, and failed the test. "Nuhhh," she protested, too bleary to speak. The blade swung away, and Lara wriggled in panic, desperate to avoid fate--anything, anything but that! 

The blade sang in the air for an eternity; Lara felt herself frozen in tearing pain and blind terror. Her view suddenly swung wildly with a sickening _thunk;_ the rocky floor smacked against the back of her head, and her vision rolled once before coming to a stop, cheek resting against something warm and wet. Her own body hung above her, stiff and shaking as nerve endings panicked and sent conflicting signals. The slop of intestines dragged against her cheek again; eyes wide in shock and horror, Lara's mouth shrieked and gabbled silently. Her eyes tracked with horrible clarity as Kali used its third blade to scrape her quivering corpse off the first two, letting it collapse wetly to the floor. Lips drawn in a wordless rictus, Lara wept and worked her throat in half-sobs; the idol bent over and grasped the base of her ponytail. The fading world swung again, until she was looking once more at Kali's perfectly-formed body. Something poked at her throat; she thought of home, and her father. Her jaws clenched as metal sliced against the base of her tongue, then scraped on the very back of her nose. Lara opened her mouth to scream, still trying to draw air from lungs that were no longer connected to her body. The metal punched upward, spiking her with the most intense pain she'd ever imagined. 

The statue of Kali looked on with the same somber expression, watching the muscles of Lara's face twitch as its sword pierced her brainpan. The top of her skull offered little resistance to the preternaturally sharp blade; the idol forced Lara's head down along the sword until the bleeding flesh below her jaw pressed against the skull that already topped the pommel. For a time, Kali held the weapon in front of it, watching the last tics work themselves out of Lara's dead muscles. Then, it turned and resumed its spot atop the pedastal. In time, the flesh and hair would rot away from the new skull, leaving only a grisly, empty, silent scream to warn any that followed. 


	7. Crossover: Resident Evil

Racoon City screamed. 

Lara suppressed a shudder as she stepped over the softening remains of--someone. The zombies had left little to identify the victim's age, race, or even gender--only a huge stain of rotting blood, a few scattered bones, and a single mouldering sneaker. When the first news reports began to trickle in, Lara had hopped on the first plane to the United States, then hired an aerial tour chopper pilot to drop her into the woods outside Racoon City and hiked the rest of the way in. A day later, she was beginning to consider hiking back out. The hordes of zombies, the mutated plants and animals--these, she could have handled, if not for all the innocent people. Logically, she knew that if she stopped to help everyone she saw, she'd be killed before accomplishing what she'd come to do--namely, secure the Breath of Anubis, thereby saving untold _millions_ of lives by putting an end to the Umbrella Corporation's experiments. 

Almost six years ago, Lara had purchased a sarcophagus from the estate of a wealthy recluse. The movers she hired to transport it were less than satisfactory; despite Lara's careful instruction, they'd managed to accidentally crack one of the clay seals that kept the sarcophagus's lid closed. That night, the other four seals crumbled, and the sarcophagus opened, releasing King Khamekobek for the first time in millennia. After a protracted battle that destroyed several hundred thousand pounds' worth of priceless relics, Lara managed to put the mummy back where it belonged--six feet under. This was not her first experience with the undead, but it was the first time she'd managed to retain a specimen. Four years of intensive study and research later, she found herself before a large tablet covered in heiroglyphics, the first line of which read 'The Breath of Anubis'. 

Lara never got further than that. The Umbrella Corporation, desperate to recover losses incurred by unsuccessful experiments in necrotic rejuvination, had turned to the ancient and mystical for answers. Their agents--highly-paid mercenaries--got the drop on her; she escaped with her life, but not the tablet. Rumors in the intervening two years indicated that Umbrella had finally found the answers they sought, collatting the data on the tablet--whether mystical or scientific, it no longer mattered--and using it to create a multitude of horrific virii. Raccoon City was their first victim; unless Lara managed to take the Breath of Anubis from them, it wouldn't be their last. 

Instinct cleared both of her Heckler & Koch pistols from the thigh holsters she wore over her urban camouflage tights, but she fired only one at the shuffling corpse making its way down the alley toward her. Normally, she wouldn't have bothered; most of the time, simply climbing on top of the nearest obstruction--even a dumpster would do--was enough to make them lose interest, since they weren't coordinated enough to follow. But Lara was in a hurry; the chopper pilot had promised to set down in the same spot he'd dropped her at in less than twenty-four hours; Lara had decided to play it safe, and give herself two days, even though she hadn't expected to spend more than six or eight hours getting her Breath back. But Raccoon City was wrecked beyond anything she could have imagined; it had taken her half the first day to reach the police station, which--according to her tourist's map--was no more than a mile from where she'd entered the city. The zombie was in her way, and Lara had more ammunition than she had time. 

Two more flat reports brought her up short; until now, hers had been the only firearms she'd heard. Anybody she met in this town was a potential threat; there was a good chance that they were either infected or insane--or both. A gun increased that potential a thousandfold. Keeping her pistols level, Lara advanced slowly toward the alley mouth, freezing twice as the unknown shooter fired again. The leather jacket Lara had worn in concession to the late-fall cool scraped against the rotting brick; she grimaced and edged away from the alley wall, shrugging her jacket closed over the black sports bra beneath. 

Suddenly, the gunman cut loose with a barrage of fire, snapping echoes bouncing over each other in a lead cacaphony. Lara knelt--the gunshots were getting louder as the shooter moved closer to the alley. Moving _fast,_ probably running, though Lara couldn't hear the footsteps over the gunfire. Any moment now-- 

"Don't bloody move!" Lara shouted as a silhouette filled the alley mouth. Instead of answering, the backlit gunman spun and fired once back into the street. An ominous _click_ indicated that no more rounds remained in the Beretta that the shooter held in a firm Weaver stance. "I said--" Lara snarled, but then a _shape_ bounded into the alley over the shooter's head, bounced off the far wall, and sprung off all four feet _right at her._ Yelping in surprise, Lara launched herself sideways, triggering her pistols instinctively. The _thing_ was too close to miss; it tumbled past her, knocked off-course by the shock of her 10mm hollowpoints, but landed on its feet at whirled toward her again. She got a better look at it, this time--a tangled mass of exposed meat and bone, hunched to sprint on all fours and topped by a gnashing, wicked mouth. _Obviously not one of the good guys._ Lara's shot took it four inches above its upper lip, right about where it's brain _should_ be. The impact collapsed it, bleeding muscle scraping on pavement as momentum carried it forward, already dead--which, in this town, didn't mean much; Lara put three more rounds through its cranium before it slopped to a halt. 

"Nice shot," a woman's voice commented tightly from behind her. Lara turned, warily; her mysterious shooter turned out to be a lassie wearing a leather skirt, some sort of sleeveless denim top, and knee-high boots. The Glock-18 in her hand didn't look all that out of place. "Now, run," she continued, sparing a glance behind her as she followed her own advice. Lara looked, then did the same. A pack of zombies--probably more than a dozen--filled the alley mouth. _Well, she doesn't _look_ like a zombie. Or a nutcase, except for that skirt--why doesn't she find something more practical?_

Their sprint took them to the far end of the alley, the way Lara had come from. Lara cursed, following the woman's lead for the time being and reloading while things were relatively quiet. Outside the alley, they slowed to a jog, the better to conserve their energy. 

"Jill," the woman puffed, "Jill Valentine." She couldn't have been more than twenty-five, but there was a hardness about her eyes that said it'd been a long quarter-century. 

"Lara Croft. Pleased, I'm sure." A lowered fire escape on the other side of the street offered shelter; Lara headed for it without comment, and Jill turned to follow. 

"You're not from around here," Jill said, scanning the alley as Lara caught the bottom rung and chinned herself. Her legs kicked the open air for a moment before she managed to swing them high enough to catch the wall and lever herself further up. 

"Sure of that, are you?" Hooking her feet in the bars, Lara leaned back until she was hanging upside down. "Up we go," she said, offering her hands to Jill. Checking the alley again, Jill holstered her pistol and caught Lara's arms, pulling herself up high enough to clamber the rest of the way unaided. 

"Well then," Lara panted, pushing herself up to sit on the rusty stair, "that was _lovely._" Disdainfully, she brushed the rust from her hands before standing and heading up the steps toward the roof. 

"What are you doing here?" Jill asked, following. There was a certain edge to her voice that made Lara drop her hand slightly, a few centimeters closer to her pistol. 

"Trying to put a stop to this," she answered carefully. 

"So, you don't work for Umbrella." Lara turned very slowly to find Jill at the bottom of the stairs, one hand hovering near her own pistol. 

"No," Lara answered, "I don't." The other woman matched her stare for a long, tense moment. 

Gravel _scrittched_ on the roof behind Lara; she ducked and whirled, pistols leaping to her hands. The shack housing access to the building's interior had burst open, pressured by the weight of zombies that had been too stupid to turn the doorknob. Faint moans drifted across the rooftop as Jill and Lara watched the shambling dead. 

"Too many," Jill decided--a dozen had already slumped out, with more behind them. "Let's get the hell out of here." 

"I've no time for waiting around," Lara agreed, sliding past Jill and leading the way back down the rusty fire escape. "Bloody waste of time," she grumped, thinking of the precious minutes wasted getting up here in the first place. "Listen," she called back, "I've got to get to--" 

"Look out!" 

Lara rolled with the impact as best she could on the iron stairway, smashing her shoulder and bruising her ribs as the clawing weight on top of her overbalanced. The moment of clumsiness saved her life--the licker that had landed atop her was sent tumbling as Lara fell down the stairs. Unable to regain its feet in time, the licker sailed through the bottom opening and wrapped itself around the street-access ladder. The weight proved too much, and the ladder snapped off with a deafening shriek; Lara followed it a moment later, tumbling through the opening after the mutated beast. Twisting in mid-air, Lara managed to land knees-first on the licker's back. Bones snapped in its muscular body, and the beast roared as Lara toppled off. Even with the licker to cushion, the six-meter fall jarred her; she lay stunned for a long moment as the licker gathered itself up and padded over to her. 

"Bloody bleeding hell," Lara mouthed as the mutant's long tongue slithered out and wrapped itself around her neck. One of her pistols had skittered some meters away, and the other was trapped beneath the licker's clawed foot. Lara lay perfectly still, eyes screwed shut as prayers ran through her mind. She felt its teeth clench lightly on her face; its jaws opened wide enough to engulf most of her head. Fetid air clawed at her lungs, and she willed herself not to scream, to die with dignity, to-- 

A snarl echoed in the alley, nearly drowned out by the triple-clap of Jill emptying an extremely short-loaded clip into the licker's back. The beast arched and gave a convulsive leap away, then hissed its defiance at Lara. Before it could leap at her again, Lara cleared her holster and snapped off three shots of her own; Jill slapped a new clip home and joined in. She cut off again after only a few shots; Lara was too busy slamming round after round into it, keeping in pinned in place, to look up and check on the other survivor. After soaking up the better part of fifteen rounds, the licker finally slumped, and Lara's H&K fell silent. 

...Allowing her to finally hear the struggling and cursing above her. Lara looked up, and spat a curse of her own--the zombies from the roof had caught up to Jill; she was fighting them off as best she could, but one of them had bitten into her wrist and made her drop her pistol. 

"Bloody fucking hell!" Lara snarled, realizing she couldn't get up there to help Jill; the licker had torn away the ladder. "Get to the opening!" she shouted, taking aim. Two quick shots, two fewer zombies to grapple Jill--but her third shot clicked empty. "Move!" she roared, turning to sprint for her other pistol. 

"Shit!" Jill grunted as she felt a grasping, clammy hand pull open the snaps that clasped her denim top. The opening was five feet away, but she was surrounded by a handful of zombies, and too busy keeping away from their teeth to crawl. With another grunt, she lashed out a booted foot and sent one of the dead men tumbling. Her top fluttered away with it, clenched in cold fingers; moonlight glinted on her exposed skin. "Some help!" she called desperately. Another zombie shambled down the steps and simply fell atop the dogpile surrounding the STAR officer, shifting the weight of the whole fire escape and jarring one of the zombies out of her grasp. Jill squealed and jerked as it landed face-first on her belly and began chewing; she grabbed its head with both hands and shoved it away. That let the zombie behind her sink its teeth into Jill's shoulder; gritting her teeth, she ignored the pain and concentrated on keeping the others away. 

An echoing _crack_ sent one of them tumbling; two more followed, and Jill was suddenly free to deal with the zombie gnawing on her shoulder. Groaning in pain, she smashed a fist into it, then tried to sit up. A loop of exposed gut curled from the bloody tear in her abdomen; covering her breasts with one arm, she ignored that, too, and reached for the railing to pull herself to her feet. Lara, down below, took aim and snapped off another shot; one floor above, a zombie stumbled as most of its rotting head splattered on the wall. For a moment, it stood wavering, as if unsure what to do next; then, it tipped over the railing. Jill's breath left in a forced cough as a hundred and sixty pounds of dead flesh landed on her, slamming her to the iron floor of the fire escape. Her entire head rang with the impact, black spots swimming before her eyes. Slowly, she became aware of someone calling her name--Lara. Lara was down below; Jill needed to get down there, too, before the zombies-- 

Gnarled teeth sank into the flesh of Jill's thigh; she howled and kicked, feeling her foot connect with something. The zombie on top of her stank of decay and urine; gagging, she shoved at it until it slid away. Before she could follow it, a cold hand clamped around the waistband of her skirt, and several more grasped her legs; she thrashed, but there were too many to pull away from. Jill began to scream as the zombies dragged her into their midst. She screamed as teeth sank into her hip, scraping along bone. She screamed as hands dug into the wound in her belly, tearing it wider. She screamed as a dead boy's braces crunched into her knee, prizing the cap away along with flesh and tendon. She screamed as a postman's greyish tongue licked against her lung through the hole he had chewed in her ribs. She screamed as fingers dug into her socket, pulling one of her eyes free as the other ran with terrified, agonized tears. She screamed as someone's unseen head forced its way into her skirt, ripping away at her inner thighs. She screamed as a whore gripped her cheek in thickly-painted lips, getting a solid grip before pulling back slowly and inexorably to rip away part of Jill's face, exposing the white bone of her lower jaw. She screamed as grasping claws pulled ropes of intestine from her body, stringing them about the pile of zombies like party streamer. She screamed as woman in a bridal dress chomped through her elbow, tearing away her forearm like a drumstick. She screamed as a dead computer analyst chewed into her breast, finally coming away a gloppy mouthful. She screamed as someone gnawed through her boot and began crunching on her foot. She screamed as a mangled hand wrapped itself around her tongue and pulled it out of her head. She screamed as grimy fingernails grabbed her sticky eye socket and pulled, cracking the side of her skull away along with a flap of her scalp. Finally, her screams died down into pitiful, convulsive grunts as greedy hands squished a quivering chunk of her brain out and stuffed it into a hungry mouth. 

Lara watched, aghast, as the zombies feasted on Jill's twitching body. After a time, she turned and was weakly sick on the decaying pavement. Stumbling away, Lara covered her eyes and tried not to listen--a block away, she could still hear the moans, the wet tearing, the occasional drumming of Jill's boots against the iron grid. _I have to get that tablet back, no matter what._ Slowly and methodically, she pulled the half-empty clip from her pistol and replaced the rounds, one at a time. The other pistol, she dropped the clip, and mechanically slid a new one home. It was _this_ bad here in town, miles from the actual laboratories--though Umbrella probably looked at the whole of Racoon City as its own, personal test tube. Who knew what sort of monsters lurked at the facility itself? 

Grimly wiping the tears from her cheeks, Lara stood up from the curb she was sitting on and checked her bearings. There was the fire station; if she remembered her map correctly, the road to the mansion was-- 

Fangs stained black with blood gnashed on her arm, nearly tearing the limb in two as the licker slammed into Lara's back with the force of a freight train. Her breath exloded away in a solid grunt; the attack knocked her from her feet and threw her nearly three meters. She landed painfully and somersaulted onto her back, trying to toss the licker--but instead, the beast leapt straight up, avoiding the maneuver completely. It came down hard, one foot smashing painfully into her breast, the other clawing into her lower ribs. Lara arched in pain, lips drawn in a rictus. In all her adventures, she'd always viewed the proximity of death as exciting; as she'd told someone else, some time ago, she played for fun--and there was no rush in the world like fighting for your life. A strained groan escaped between her grinding teeth as the licker's jaws clamped around her crotch and hip, its seven-centimeter teeth locking around her pelvis. The familiar thrill of giddy adrenaline didn't come--there was too much at stake, too many lives to be lost, if Lara died now. Whining pain and terror, she scrabbled to get a pistol out with her good hand. While its maw wrestled itself more tightly into her pelvic bone, the licker's rear claws flexed, drawing a gurgle from Lara as they tore one breast and hooked into her ribs. Blood pumped into her mouth--her shaking hand finally freed the pistol. _If I can just... I have to..._ Jumbled thoughts collided in Lara's mind; blindly, she jammed the H&K against the beast and pulled the trigger--and again--and again--and again-- 

With a muffled roar, the licker unwound its powerful legs, the claws in her chest shoving against her upper body while her lower body was held in place by its muscled jaws. Lara cried out, groaning and trying to get her finger to work again. Another splattering _bang,_ and the licker kicked harder; something in her spine gave way in explosions of pain. Her fingers were numb; there wasn't enough blood left in her body to fill them. When the next shot came, it was a surprise to her; she hadn't been aware her digits were still capable of movement. Growling, the licker shoved again. Lara felt herself grinding against the pavement, keening in unimaginable agony--it felt like her guts were on fire. Eyes screwed shut, she tried to make her hand work. Nothing happened; moaning breathily, she lifted her head and saw that the pistol lay where her nerveless fingers had dropped it, a meter and a half away--right next to her lower body. Viscera still connected her ribs to her belly, slathered across the pavement and sending dull razors up her nervous connections. Eyes and mouth twisted wide in horror, she tried to shriek; all she managed, as the licker lifted one of her legs and began to feed, was a few tiny, strained squeaks, each gurgled with bubbles of blood that ran from the corners of her mouth. 

Unbelieving tears streamed her cheeks as she watched the licker impatienty tear away her camouflaged stretch pants and rip off a mouthful of her upper thigh. The thing ate in huge chunks, not even bothering to chew the bolts of flesh it tore away. Blood leaked and splashed, draining from her flesh; the beast heaved, cracking Lara's pelvis and pulling off one leg. For a few minutes, it played with the chunks, its tiny brain already bored. Wandering over, it found that the other half of its meal had managed to roll itself over before dying. Sniffing at it interestedly, it crouched and began tearing daintily at her ribs, searching for the soft meat inside. Lara's face stared blindly, moving only when the licker shifted her corpse to dig out more of her heart and lungs. 

---- 

Author's Note: This is the first in what may become a series--has already become a series, in fact, but may become a series of more two--of stories about Lara Croft buying the farm in games other than her own. I've got four more lined up, as soon as I work up the gumption. I'm also open to suggestions for lethal games to put her through her paces in; I was thinking maybe Mario Brothers, but it somehow just doesn't appeal. 


	8. Crossover: FAKK2

Bright light suddenly flared, blinding Lara even through the red lenses of her sunglasses. Grunting in surprise, she hopped back--and her boots sank several inches into soft mud. 

Blinking away the spots in her vision, Lara looked around. Then she blinked again, in surprise. A moment ago, she'd been in Antarctica, where she'd discovered an Atlantean temple hidden in an ice cave. A newly-found Platonic manuscript had hinted at the temple's existence--_probably_ Platonic; at any rate, the author said he was Plato. Lara's own experiences had shown her an Atlantis that didn't much resemble that ancient author's wild tales, but this particular manuscript was solidly accurate, having led her to the location of a singing stone in a complex beneath the Devil's Tower in Arizona. The stone, in turn, had sung a weirdly beautiful flow of words in a lost language, which Lara had dutifully recorded. Several tens of thousands of pounds invested in aural linguistics later, the recording produced a detailed oral map that led to something called the 'Communing of the We'. The We, Lara had gathered, were another ancient race with which the Atlanteans had conversed; the temple in Antarctica was designed as some sort of communication device. And _that_ sounded like something that might go nicely in the foyer, next to the second-century Grecian water clock. 

Within the temple, she'd found nothing but friezes and statues, most of them locked in ice. Tall, fluted columns had supported the twenty-meter ceiling, often carved with strange, six-eyed faces. Shivering cold even beneath her heavy winter clothes, Lara eventually located a sort of central chamber, a huge area whose walls vanished into darkness. She'd been able to put her torch away, then; in the center of the room, the was a low, sloped pedestal, perhaps fifteen centimeters off the ground. Its top was inset with a strange pattern; Lara could see it clearly, because the stone glowed with a clear, blue light. A half-hour's study had yielded nothing; finally, she'd stepped onto the small dias to get a better look at the white stone set into its center. 

And now, she found herself here. A twelve-legged mosquito buzzed by as Lara pulled her furred hood off her head and stared around. Immense trees rose from the soggy ground, their tops obscured by heavy mist. A trio of stone, humanoid statues crouched facing the dias she'd arrived on--a near-perfect double of the one in Antarctica, save that the tracery on this one glowed faintly red. Settled atop the far statue, a snake with a single eye raised its head to regard Lara quizically before sliding off and hopping away. She couldn't be sure, but Lara doubted she was still on Earth. 

Wherever she was, her bundled clothing was _definitely_ out of place. She hadn't yet been here two minutes, and already the muggy heat had sunk into her skin and brought out sweat. Shrugging out of the heavy, fur-lined coat, she looked around for a suitable spot before deciding to simply hang it over one of the statues' extended arms--she'd considered setting the winter clothing on the dias and sending it back to Antarctica, but they'd cool quickly there--pulling on clothing in sub-zero temperatures was a good way to catch cold, and incredibly uncomfortable besides. A Thinsulate pullover and a cotton longsleeve came next, followed by Lara's heavy waterproof fatigues and long underwear bottoms. She was left, finally, with a strappy midriff top of light pink silk--there were many discomforts Lara was willing to endure, but rough-woven cotton on bare breasts wasn't one of them--and a pair of foil-thin white polypropelene leggings. Despite their sheer fit, the polypro was uncomfortably warm; but at tempting as it might be to traipse around the alien swamp wearing nothing but a breeze, prudence demanded pants. Her only concession was to roll the waistband down to hug her hips before strapping on her pistol rig and pulling on her heavy boots. 

Designating the trio of statues her base camp, Lara hung her pack up by its straps and picked a random direction. Most swamps were low-lying and fairly flat; this one was comprised of rocky upthrusts coated in a layer of muck held in tenuous place by blue-brown grasses--probably, the area flooded regularly, replacing muck that had been scraped off by passing animal life. In the near distance--as far as Lara could see, through the thick ground fog--regular shapes loomed, stone ruins of some past civilization. _Probably the We. Looks like they fared as well as the Atlanteans._ With a mental shrug, Lara turned and headed toward the ruins. They'd been, it appeared, some sort of worship area. The same six-eyed statues she'd seen in the Antarctic temple were here; at what used to be the front--or maybe the back; who knew?--of the area, a meter-high column thrust up from the floor. Its top was ringed with alien symbols, maybe the written version of the language Lara had heard from the singing stone. The glyphs surrounded a fist-sized chunk of white, marbled stone carved to resemble the large statues at the teleportation dias. Reddish light leaked from the stone, casting odd shadows around the broken walls and statues; Lara took off her sunglasses and folded them, hooking the earpiece on the low neck of her silk top. It was certainly an interesting statue--and easily transportable; perhaps she could have a setting for it made, carved to resemble the column it now rested on. After checking the statue for trap triggers, she picked it up and hefted it. 

Someone exclaimed behind her; Lara sidestepped and drew her pistol but did not quite aim it at the tall woman who'd come up behind her. Sound carried oddly, here; even with her unusually sharp hearing, Lara hadn't noticed the woman until she'd spoken. Warily, the two women sized each other up; Lara cocked an eyebrow. Unlike Lara, the other had decided to forego pants--and top--in favor of wide, olive green stripes of camouflaging paint. Her dark hair was piled into a bun, and her fair skin was marked in several places by mean-looking scars. Her left arm was strapped into a shield made of scales far larger and thicker than anything Lara had ever seen; in her right hand, a large sword bobbed slightly as crackling tongues of flame burned along its blade--the fuel source wasn't immediately apparent. 

"Who are you?" Julie asked, running her eyes over the pistol in the shorter woman's hand--a slug-thrower powered by impact explosives, if the hammer mechanism was anything to judge by. Primitive, but lethal. The mystic energies running through her shield would stop its bullets, certainly, but it was hard to use it and swing her sword effectively at the same time. 

"I can't understand a word you're saying," Lara said, frowning at the other woman's oddly fluid speech. It didn't resemble the tongue of the singing stone--_that_ language had likely died out millennia ago. 

"What?" Julie exclaimed. "Don't you speak Embrosian?" The only civilizations that didn't employ the language of the defunct Galactic Federation were those that were star-stranded; Embrosian was the language of trade, and was therefore spoken nearly everywhere in the galaxy. 

_She musn't be aware of the teleportation diases,_ Lara realized. _Otherwise, she wouldn't be surprised that I don't speak the same language she does._ Pondering her next move, Lara let her mind wonder what sort of civilization had grown here, in the absence of the We. _Something tribal and savage, from the look of this woman. But those are normally male-dominated; I wonder why this one is out in the wilderness?_

"Listen," Julie said when the other woman didn't reply, "I don't know how you got here, but I need that tiki. The tiki," she repeated, pointing at it with the tip of her fireblade, "I need that." 

"No," Lara replied when the savage woman pointed at the statue in her hand. Not that she really begrudged the poor native the statue, but she was curious about how the other would react; that, in turn, could give clues about the woman's civilization--if it could be called that. 

"Dammit," Julie sighed, rubbing her head. The woman was obviously some star-flung aborigine who'd poked around in the wrong ruins, and now wanted a souvenier to take home. Julie wouldn't have cared--let the swamp take care of the stupid bitch, _she_ had to have that statue to open the We portcullis blocking the nearby river. Beyond it, legend said the We had stored a powerful weapon in their ancient tomb--and Julie needed it to fight off Gith, the destroyer who'd come for the life-giving secrets of Eden. "Listen, you primitive little space monkey, gimme the damn tiki or I'll fucking _flay_ you!" The woman looked too prim to be hardwired; more likely, her backwater culture had taboos about running around naked, which explained why her eyes kept glancing down at Julie's body. 

"Point that pig-sticker at me again," Lara warned cooly, wishing the savage'd had the decency to wear _something,_ "and I'll feed it to you." The statue was an idol, she decided; the hopelessly primitive woman probably made sacrifices to it. Giving it back _now_ would be a sign of weakness--potentially lethal, given common tribal attitudes toward dominance. But the savage's nudity kept reminding Lara of how utterl _ludicrous_ her situation was; it was like trying to threaten a daydream. 

Most of those on Eden knew Julie as a friendly, pleasant woman who went out of her way to be nice to everyone. Most of those on Eden _also_ knew that this was only an exterior--they'd heard stories of Julie's rage, and treated her with careful respect even though their knowledge of it was all second-hand; no one in a position to have first-hand knowledge had survived the learning process. With the life of her planet and people once again at stake, the friendly, pleasant Julie was fading, subsumed by F.A.K.K.2. _Anybody who won't give way to a naked woman carrying around a fucking firesword is too stupid to live,_ Julie decided emotionlessly. 

_Brilliant, Lara._ Kicking her legs out from beneath her, the adventurer landed hard on her back as the savage's burning blade whistled over her. _Piss off the naked bitch with the flaming bloody sword._ Flipping to her feet, she fired off two rounds and backpedalled. The savage had expected this, raising the shield she carried. To Lara's surprise, the bullets ricocheted away instead of punching through the scale construction and into the savage's lungs. Cursing, she hopped sideways to put a column between herself and the savage, keeping the pistol trained on her target. Twice more, she popped off a shot; twice more, the bullets caromed off at crazy angles to bury themselves somewhere out in the mists. 

The primitive was _quick._ Julie'd expected to gut her on the first stroke; she almost hadn't gotten her shield up fast enough. Eyes on the crude slug-thrower the primitive favored, Julie darted forward and stopped to deflect another shot. The primitive ducked away, leaping the crumbled wall to land in the muck of the swamp--out of sight behind the ancient stone. Hissing in anger, Julie followed, keeping an eye on the environment--she knew the swamp, the primitive didn't; forcing her into some deadly flora or fauna would be the quickest way to end this. There--ten meters away, a suckenblow root had spread its ground-hugging leaves sleepily across the grassy muck, waiting for something to step on it. Glaring at the ignorant woman that held her tiki, Julie circled left, putting the primitive directly between herself and the suckenblow. 

_She's herding me,_ Lara realized, glancing behind her to see what sort of peril the savage was trying to get her to walk into. The only thing that stood out was a bright red flower nodding gently in the shadow of a thick branch, from which a long, ropy vine hung. Next to the vine--no, _connected_ to the vine; Lara could see the tiny rootlets that shared nutrients between them--a knobby, parasitic growth bulged the bottom of the tree branch. Lara had spent enough time in the Amazon to know that anything as brightly-colored as that flower was either poisonous or a trap. Given the fact that this savage was trying to herd her toward it, the latter was more likely. _And nothing's more handy than a trap that you already know about._ With a nasty grin, Lara sparked another round off of the savage's shield, and let herself be herded. 

_She's falling for it,_ Julie thought with a nasty grin. The primitive's own smile was full of bravado, but her fear showed in the fact that she backed away from Julie's advances, and only fired defensively--just often enough to keep Julie from rushing in and finishing the game with a disemboweling stroke. Idly, she wondered how the primitive would react to being eaten. _She's a screamer--look at those clothes; she doesn't know the first thing about pain. When that suckenblow gets ahold of her, she'll shatter like plate glass. Begging for mercy, thrashing around, the whole nine yards._ Another grin lit Julie's face; she couldn't _wait_ to watch this frigid, stupid bitch squirm. Bounding suddenly forward, she swiped at the primitive, drawing another explosion from the slug-thrower. Just one more step; impatient, Julie made another slash--and instead of retreating, the primitive ducked _under_ the attack and lashed out with a hard kick aimed at Julie's shins. Cursing, Julie jerked to the left, away from the kick. Something smacked solidly across her shoulders and chest, and then yanked her into the air so suddenly that she dropped the firesword. _She tricked me,_ Julie realized in amazement, then looked up and had just enough time to scream in terror. 

The grabyerass's feeding orifice opened wide, crunching its pithy spike into Julie's cheekbone and out the back of her skull. Julie's throat locked against the air being forced out by her diaphragm, producing a harsh strangling sound for the few seconds it took the wooden teeth to tear her head off. Long, dark hair tumbled from between the clawed mandibles, catching some of the crushed brain matter that leaked as the plant masticated her skull--the grabyerass wasn't used to consuming such large meals. It worked well enough, however; chewing industriously, the vine shoved Julie's torso up into the mouth as far as it would go. Her fingers kinked and extended of their own accord as the voracious plant crunched into her, twisting and pulling while loops of intestine flopped out. Its teeth caught against her spine; working meticulously, it clamped down on the bones as best it could and ripped them out--Julie's backbone and most of her ribcage sailed down to clatter in the muck, leaving only flaccid meat and blood above her waist. After chewing her thorax and most of her back away, the grabyerass decided it'd had enough for now; the hydromechanical energy it'd expended to catch its meal had been made up for at least a hundred times over. Unlooping its vine, it let Julie's lower body drop to the ground; her legs continued to twist against each other mindlessly, tangling in the slop of viscera splayed from the remains of her belly. 

Lara had watched the plant kill and decapitate the savage, then taken an unknowingly fatal step backward. Calcium spikes the length of her finger embedded in the suckenblow's meter-wide leaves had crunched into her legs and yanked her, screaming, off of her feet to land hard in the soupy grass. The leaf that had caught her drug her backwards, leaving ten long slices in the earth where her fingers had dug in desperate hope. The other two leaves were probing her now, testing leisurely to find what sort of meal the root was about to consume. Lara sobbed and struggled, agonized by the spikes impaling her shins and feet. The polypropelene tights weren't to the suckenblow's liking, but it could smell the soft flesh waiting below. Lashing its other two leaves over as far as it could, it worked its teeth into the meal's leg's and buttocks, drawing a primitive sense of joy at the way the meal kicked and squirmed. Movement like that meant feeding, reinforcing its anticipation and hunger; once it got a firm grip in the meal's flesh, it yanked it half a meter closer, alowing the thousands of tiny teeth at its center to begin nibbling and shredding the meal's toes. Lara gave a short, sharp screech as she felt the plant slicing into her feet, ripping off tiny bits with terrifying alacrity. She screamed again, clawing at the earth; the agonizing sensation had already reached her ankles. _I'm going to die by inches,_ the panicked thought ran through her head, heaving for breath as the bones of her feet cracked and seperated. 

"Not like this," she gasped. _Not screaming and pissing myself and kicking for hours while it eats me slowly!_ Choking on her tears, she dug into the muddy ground again. Her pistol was mere centimeters from her outstretched hand--centimeters from a quick, clean, dignified death. Straining, she wriggled a bit closer--almost there--almost! 

Sensing that its prey was trying to escape, the suckenblow pulled the meal closer. Lara howled in rage and dispair, pounding her fist against the thick leaves that enrapped her up to her hip. Reeling her in had dislodged her ankles--all that remained of her feet--from the plant's mouth; it shifted its leaves, trying to direct her back in place. A flash of suicidal inspiration struck her; it would be painful, but quicker than waiting to bleed to death while the pland nibbled away at her. Lara pushed herself to her knees with a groan of new agony as more spikes sunk into her legs. Turning as best she could, she worked a hand under the topmost leaf and strained to push it aside. The suckenblow's hydromechanical 'muscles' weren't designed for great lateral strength; most of the time, it simply had to curl one or two of its leaves, rolling prey up in the lethal spikes and depositing the meal into its mouth. Lara had to work harder to overcome the leaf's weight than she did to beat its intentional resistance. Finally, she managed to lever the fleshy thing out of her way. Taking a deep breath, she curled over to place her head inside the plant's waiting mouth. 

The suckenblow'd had just about enough, at this point. Pulling one of its leaves away from the meal, it slapped it around the struggling meatsack's upper arm and and shoulder, then forced it down onto the plant's orifice. Lara garbled, blood leaking into her lungs as the plant snapped her spine and shoved her lower back against the articulated teeth. Desperately, she clawed at the leaves, but the fibrous material hugged her closer. Too panicked and agonized even to scream, she grunted beastially, jerking back and forth helplessly as the root's tiny mandibles gnawed through the muscles of her lower back. Her cries peaked, and ran together into a high-pitched squeal as her abdominal cavity finally tore open--the horrible sensation of her guts sliding out of her body, the agonizing dual feeling of emptiness as blazing pain as the suckenblow went to work on the visceral mess piled in its orifice. The soft flesh was quickly chopped into a bloody jelly that was in turn sucked into the root's several digestive cavities--all of which were nearly full. Wishing to make the most of its meal, the plant rewrapped its quivering meal and folded in half. Death filled Lara's mind; she whimpered and keened, struggling weakly to pull herself free as her legs flopped up over her shoulders. When the ground dropped out from beneath her, she shrieked, then shrieked louder as the suckenblow began using its mandibles to rip her into course chunks for later meals. Her screams choked and glubbed as her lungs were shredded, but she remained horribly conscious even as the plant finished with her breasts and began chewing into her face. 

A minute or so later, the suckenblow laid its leaves out flat and belched forcefully, shooting the inedibles into the air. Lara's ripped, bloodstained leggings and silk top fluttered and were caught in the forest's lower branches; her mangled sunglasses bounced of of Julie's thigh and splashed into the muck, where they were crushed by her still-convulsing foot. 

--- 

Author's Note: Most people who play F.A.K.K.2 do so without ever encountering any nudity--but, then, most people do not employ the skins and mods that I do. My decision to describe one of these skins--so to speak--in this story comes from both an attempt at fidelity to my own gaming experiences, and as a nod to the fact that most any story about two women in mortal combat is going to contain an amount of titillation anyway. 


	9. Crossover: Dino Crisis

Lara leaned around the corner of the low cement wall and fired off two shots without particularly bothering to aim. A semi-automatic pistol wasn't the best choice for laying down enough fire to convince an enemy that staying out of sight might be a wiser choice than shooting back--and especially a pistol with a silencer screwed onto the barrel, since the psychological value of loud noise was more important than the bullets themselves. But, one used what one had. 

Regina, at that particular moment, had more ammunition than the entire Second Infantry Division, and no goddamn _time_ to fuck around with this bitch. Coop hadn't made contact since the jump, nothing was left of Gail but a hole in the fence and a hell of a lot of blood, and she couldn't call Rick because her taccom had _run out of batteries._ In the history of all the missions that had ever been ratfucked, this one was the fuck to end all rats, even without running into some armed psychowhore. Any other day, Regina might have considered talking--considered it for at least a few seconds before shooting anyway. But today? Today, she'd opened fire right off the bat; a dead unknown was better than a live one. Unfortunately, the bitch had managed to leap out of the way at the last second. 

Pressing her lips together in frustration, Lara scooted back from the t-intersection she was stuck at and popped her clip, checking her ammo count through the long viewing slit cut into the treated aluminum. If things had gone as she'd planned, the pistol in her hand would have been the perfect weapon for the job: specially modified with a compressed-air cartridge that kept the chamber free of water when the action cycled, with a Heckler and Koch silencer mounted on the floating barrel thread and a trigger-mounted laser sight so that she hardly even had to aim the damn thing. Hell, if things had even gone slightly not-bad, she'd have the compact PDW in its oilskin wrap, tucked inside her pack. Her pack, however-- black nylon with a waterproof layer, this time, rather than the trusty ruck that would have been impractical for this particular outing--lay where she'd left it, across the open space controlled by that red-haired specops tart. Instead, she was left with this high-priced gadget that was _absolutely bleeding useless_ for what she needed to do. Shivering slightly in the moderate chill, the tomb raider rubbed her nose and slapped her clip home again. Her clothes were in the pack as well; until she retrieved it, she was stuck with her long-sleeved wetsuit and the bare feet that were only slightly better than the flippers that were her only alternative at the moment. In the full moonlight, her bare legs appeared blueish. _Come to think, moonlight generally makes things look pale. Could it possibly be any colder out here, I wonder?_

Despite herself, Regina flinched as another pair of lead slugs smashed bonging dimples in the inch-thick steel plating the power transformer she was using as cover. She followed gunfight etiquette and reflexively fired off a short burst of her own without looking; the harsh racket didn't intrude on her furious planning. The muted _thupp-thupp_ of that bitch's silencer was unnerving, though--not that hearing the gunshots would really help; by the time the sound reached her, she'd either be lucky to be alive... or her head would already be jerking back, blood winking in the moonlight as her jellied brain splattered over the cement like cottage cheese. Regina wasn't some sicko who liked to look at the morbid details, but she'd done more than enough wetwork to be able to imagine her own body slumped against the wall, eyes rolled back as if staring at the leaking hole in her forehead, with the contents of her skull dripping down in into her hair while her fingers clutched at empty air. 

"Oy!" Lara's voice echoed off the cement walls of the paramilitary research compound. "You, with the ridiculous pink hair!" 

"...What?" Leading with her Galil, Regina risked a quick peek around the transformer. 

"I'm sure we've both something better to do than waste time and ammunition missing each other," Lara called. 

"This is a goddamn _gunfight!_ You don't _talk_ during a _gunfight!"_ Another burst of autofire punctuated her words, sparking off the reinforced cement. 

"You seem like a nice enough girl, if a bit daft--I'd really hate to have to kill you." Lara's skin prickled with sweat despite the cool weather, dropping the apparent temperature by at least ten degrees. "Besides which, it's bloody freezing out, and I've nothing on but my knickers." 

"What the hell are you even doing here? Why's England running black bag shit and not talking to us?" _Another damn foreign relations screw-up. Fuck it, I'll just say that whatever got Coop and Gail must've got her. Assuming that whatever got them doesn't get me._ "Listen," Regina shouted, rolling the back of her head against the surface behind her so that she could see around the transformer without exposing herself, "why don't you just come out, and we can talk?" 

"Well, there's the matter of you shooting at me," Lara's reply came. 

"Like you said," Regina called, "we're just wasting time." 

"...Alright, then." Lara pushed herself to a crouch, balancing on her toes for a steadying moment before standing. With a slow breath, she stepped around the corner, pistol held out but not quite aimed at anything. Regina was crouched next to the transformer, Galil similarly shouldered but not sighted. "So tell me," Lara offered, "is that hair standard-issue, or did they make you pay for it?" 

The six-foot tall lizard that landed silently some ten meters behind Lara cut off any thought Regina had in the way of snappy comebacks. Her conscious mind was shocked into paralysis, but her instincts were primed by rigorous training and hard experience; she stood, bringing the Galil up on the new threat. The stupid British dyke was in the way-- 

There was a sharp, wet, double slapping sound, and Regina saw an arc of blood splash out in front of her, seperating into individual droplets before spattering on the other woman's face. Surprised, Regina tried to step back, but her body betrayed her, and she ended up simply falling back to lean against the transformer as her mouth moved in a curse that somehow never quite made it to her lips. Her lips, her lips were wet, and her neck felt funny. The Galil clattered to the ground as she looked down to see a river of blood running down her chest. Vaguely amazed, she cupped her hand beneath her jaw for a moment, and watched the blood pump into it in steady gushes. Her eyes wandered up to see the other bitch looking down at her--Regina'd slid down into a half-curled sitting position at some point, how had she missed that?--with a mixture of resignation and regret on her face. 

"We could have talked," Lara said, kneeling in front of the red-haired operative to look into her glistening eyes. "Shoot first and ask questions later is a fine policy, until the day you find someone faster on the draw." 

"You stupid bitch," Regina tried to say; nothing came out. Her voice box, she realized, had been shredded by the two bullets. The Brit must have placed her pistol right up against Regina's throat before pulling the trigger; the operative's fingers found a ragged, fist-sized hole where the front of her neck had been, then reached further to touch the actual bone of her own spine--the gasses following the double-tap had actually pumped into the hole made by the bullets themselves before expanding, splashing out an enormous chunk of flesh. Regina continued to stare into the British bitch's eyes as she knelt and placed her pistol against Regina's forehead. The red-haired girl's lips twisted in a weak grimace of hatred, but the dyke never pulled the trigger. 

"Uh," Lara grunted as six-inch hooked teeth crunched through her skull. Her entire body gave a convulsive flop, flinging her expensive pistol up over the fence. Slowly, her eyes blinked at Regina; her face was slack and trembling, and her lips moued softly a few times as the velociraptor behind her planted a heavy foot on her back to get the leverage it needed to rip the upper-rear half of her head off. Hips humping up and down in a reflexive effort to stand up, Lara flumped forward against Regina's belly. Blearily, Regina looked down at the soggy interior of Lara's brain as the tomb raider wriggled. 

"You stupid bitch," Regina tried again to say. The dinosaur chewed into Lara's shoulder and tried to swallow, but her wetsuit caught in its teeth. It shook its head savagely with a ragged snarl, ripping most of the suit away and flopping Lara over on her back. _She must have been cold,_ Regina thought distractedly as her vision came to rest on the blue-white skin of Lara's breasts. The tomb raider's bare feet slipped against the bloody concrete as the velociraptor tore open her belly to scoop up a mouthfull of gloppy organs. Regina's eyes slid up to the dead woman's face; Lara's own eyes were half-lidded, lips slightly parted. Brain matter oozed out from behind her ear. Every muscle in her face was loose; in death, she'd taken on a vaguely distracted expression, as if she'd more important matters to consider than the way the seven-hundred pound killer was ripping apart her naked body. Regina's eyes stung as she watched the giant lizard pull Lara in half and begin digging into the tomb raider's chest while her legs humped and flopped of their own accord. That would be her, soon enough--that would be Regina. She'd watch the dinosaur tear her guts out, and try to scream as her hands pushed ineffectively at the velociraptor's snout. She'd kick, hands clenching into fists, and she'd die, and her face would stare blankly at the black sky as a nightmare from the depths of Hell stripped her dead body of flesh, clothing, and dignity. 

Claws clicked against the cement, and Regina looked up to see the velociraptor standing over her. 

Her mouth formed the word "no," jaw working in terror as the huge beast delicately snuffled her hair. Its skin was pebbly and cool as it moved its snout slowly down her face, stopping at her throat to flick out a dry tongue. Regina's entire body trembled as she watched it sniff its way down her chest and stop to nudge her hips for a moment before continuing on to check out each leg individually. No blood spattered its elongated face, she realized; it must have taken the time to lick itself clean. With absurd precision, the velociraptor sniffed its way back up to her breastbone, then stood and extended the eight-inch claw that dominated its muscular foot. Too weak from blood loss to escape, Regina simply watched in horrified fascination as the monster placed its claw against the tear-resistant leather of her sneaking suit. It paused for a long second, as if savoring the moment while Regina's breath slurped in and out with terrified speed. She'd never felt so alive--every nerve ending sang with sensation; she could feel each pore in her skin. 

The raptor's claw sank into her flesh, and Regina's back arched in pain. Horrified strength shot through her, and she kicked her legs hard against the cement--but then it left her, and she slumped loosely. With great effort, she turned her head to watch as the velociraptor dragged its claw down through her belly until it met her pelvis. Lips drawn in pain, she stared with horrible clarity as the giant lizard pushed its snout into her body, coming up with long ropes of intestine hanging out from the sides of its narrow jaws. Her throat clenched in silent grunts of horror, and she shoved against the dinosaur's nose with all her might; the lizard took no notice, bending down to slurp up more viscera as Regina's fingers scrabbled against its face. 

Rage tore suddenly through Regina's mind. Some fuckin' monster was _eating_ her, and all she could do was sit and watch! Her lips drew back in hissing anger, teeth clenched painfully tight; her fingers twitched, then pulled into fists. Focusing all her energy, she managed to draw one leg up weakly, knocking her knee against the velociraptor's forehead as it nibbled at the bleeding ropes of muscle stretching across her pelvis. Twice more, she managed to thump her leg aginst it. Eyes blazing with hatred, she tried to gather strength for a fourth attempt, but shock and blood loss finally caught up with her. A final, shuddering breath burbled in her throat, and she flopped over onto her side to stare blankly as the velociraptor continued tearing and eating. When it finished, it straightened up and walked a sideways step to sniff at Regina's chest. Below her waist, a length of spine still connected to her hips, stringy with flesh the raptor hadn't bothered with. 

With the same care it had shown before, the velociraptor carefully tore away the upper part of Regina's sneaking suit, licking appreciatively at the delicious meat it revealed. Rolling her body onto its back again, the giant lizard sank its teeth into her torso and began to feed. Regina's eyes stared blankly at the night sky; her face was slack and blank, rolling slightly from side to side as the velociraptor ripped her into sluggishly bleeding chunks. 


	10. Crossover: Mortal Kombat

"I'm sorry," Li Mei whispered. Sonya Blade's chin was clamped by the Outworlder's forearm; the top of her head was pressed against the bare skin between Li Mei's breasts. The special operative peered up at her captor from behind a swollen, blue-black eye socket, and felt the impossibly fine Outworlder silk of Li Mei's kimono brush her lips. The sky, far past Li's sorrowful brow, was the color of dried blood, shot through with corroded green clouds. Sonya's ribs ached from where Li Mei's rock-hard foot had smashed into her; her knee throbbed hotly around the sharpened sai that had been punched through it. The Earth native could feel the cotton of her midriff t-shirt stretched over her breasts, pulled tight by the awkward arch of her back; the equally short-hemmed flight jacket she wore suddenly didn't seem enough to ward off the chill that had invaded her body. Her leather pants were torn and dusty; she remembered pulling them over her thighs just a few hours ago, after a night's sleep at the decrepit palace Raiden had made the base of his operations in Outworld. She remembered thinking, at the time, that if it weren't for the occasional attempt of some otherwordly megalomaniac attempting to include Earth in his empire, she'd never get to wear clothes like this. Her work as a founding officer in the Outerworld Investigation Agency took up far too much of her time-- 

Sonya's view whirled violently, and a terrible pain lanced through her entire body before sealing itself in her neck. The world swung oddly; it was only when the back of her had slammed into the dust that she realized Li Mei had dropped her. At the bottom of her vision, she could see her nipples outlined against the white t-shirt--it was true, she realized, those stories about the body's reaction to a broken neck. Somewhere below where her spine had been snapped apart, her body was probably twitching in ecstacy. Vaguely, Sonya tried to remember whether she'd taken a leak before beginning the assault on Shang Tsung and Quan Chi; she at least wanted the dignity of not pissing her pants when she died. 

Her vision began to fade, the way it did when she stood up too fast--something she'd never do again. Somewhere to her right, Li Mei was fighting someone. Who? Sonya strained to turn her eyes and focus on the Outworlder's assailant; after a few long seconds, she finally recognized Croft. What was her first name? Larry. No, that was a boy's name. Lara, that was it. Lara lashed out with a fast boot to Li Mei's belly, knocking the Outworlder back and giving the tomb raider time to draw her pistols. In Sonya's dimming vision, the double flash of Lara's dual Colt 1911's was sun-bright. Time felt slower; Sonya watched the two .45 slugs punch into Li Mei's cheek and nose, distending her orientental features with the shock of impact. A few seconds later, or so it seemed, a lazy gout of blood and colloid brain matter lifted a lock of Li Mei's long hair in a slow halo, and the Outworlder began to stumble back, pupils dilating to bring into focus something only she could see. 

An intense guilt suddenly fell on Sonya; her face pulled back into a rictus of sorrow as Li Mei flumped out of sight. It was her fault Lara was here, another victim in a pointless war. Earth was safe, all its portals destroyed; only the power of an Elder God could connect it to Outworld again. Her own life was a small price to pay for the freedom of worlds besides Earth, but to have dragged Lara here, playing on her sense of adventure and the chance to study outer-Earth cultures in order to have one more ally--one more body for the fodder-pile--was unconsciable. Sonya Blade died, tears streaming back along her temples as her body, unbeknownst to her, kicked and flopped in a puddle of her own urine. 

The Outworlder twat made shaky "huuuhhh, huhhh" sounds as Lara stood over her quivering body--confused relfex instructing her lungs to breathe in and out at the same time. There wasn't any use checking on poor Sonya. The special operative's head had been twisted a full three hundred-sixty degrees; the flesh of her neck was wound like a slinky. _At least it was quick,_ Lara thought, glancing again at the base of one of the tall, wrist-thick spikes which ran like a wall around Shang Tsung's palace. The Lin Kuei warrior named Frost had disappeared from Raiden's camp almost a week ago; most had assumed that the female ice-fighter had simply abandoned the cause. Regardless of her reason for leaving, her location was no longer a mystery: seven meters above where Lara was looking, the twisted iron spike punched into Frost's naked body, just above her buttocks, running up through her torso to protrude from the joint between her neck and shoulder. The amount of blood crusting the spike suggested that she'd hung there for most of the week that she'd been missing, yet the frost-haired warrior stilled clutched and mewled at the top of perch, kept alive--or, at least, conscious--by eldritch, evil magics. Most of the other spikes were similarly occupied, though those bodies showed less life than Frost. These warlocks Sonya had told her about had been breathing for far, far too long. Grimly, Lara holstered her pistols and charged toward where Princess Kitana was fighting with the betrayer, Hsu Hao. 

Lara held a green belt in capoeira, which she used mainly on the dance floor of any number of night clubs when she felt the occasional urge to shake her booty; her white belt in pentjak-silat was infinitely more practical. A master of the hopping, whirling capoeira could be incredibly dangerous, as she'd seen demonstrated during her first instruction period--but the modular, straightforward techniques taught by the pentjak-silat teacher she'd switched to after a year's training appealed more to her particular mindset. 

Even so, her capoeira instincts came in handy--Hsu Hao'd seen her coming, and lashed out with a sudden back elbow. With a grace she barely knew she possessed, Lara arched back and twisted low, clipping Hao with the toe of her left boot before spinning and bringing it around again for another high kick that caught the betrayer in the back of his head. Seeing an opening, Kitana spun in with her steel fans extended, drawing two bleeding lines across his barrel chest. 

"Fsah akh-mekh!" Hsu Hao spat, stumbling back. 

"Didn't catch that," Lara commented, sidestepping slowly to keep Hao between herself and Kitana despite the massive man's manuevering. Hao suddenly turned his back to her, facing Kitana; Lara slunk forward. 

"It was Outworlder," she heard Kitana's mellow voice tell her from the other side of Hsu Hao. "He called you a--" Anything else the princess might have said was drowned out by an evil-sounding whine, like a jet turbine warming up. Lara shot forward, leaping high into the air to slam both her boots high into Hsu Hao's back; the betrayer fell onto his stomach, surprised by the speed and ferocity of the attack. Before he could regain his feet, Lara hopped into the air above him and kicked again; this time, the toe of her boot crunched into the base of Hao's bald skull, dislocating his vertebrae hard enough to snap the nerves inside. 

Kitana looked up at Lara; Lara stared in horror at the hole, easily thirty centimeters in diameter, that Hsu Hao's laser burst had burned through Kitana's upper belly. Viscera quivered like jelly at the bottom, where the beam had engulfed much of her stomach; at the top, white rings of bone around dark circles of marrow showed where it had burned cleanly through her ribs. Between, Lara could see the mountainous horizon behind the princess. Kitana sank to her knees, her lips outlined against her half-mask in an 'o' of horror that was nearly wider than her terrified eyes as she dazedly reached through her own body, feeling to see if the massive wound were real. 

"Oh, my God," Lara breathed, rushing forward to catch the princess as she slumped back. Helplessly, she cradled Kitana's head, looking around desperately for help. Across the way, Johnny Cage screeched as the oni Drahmin crushed the movie star with the spike club enclosing his right hand; Raiden shouted and disappeared in a blaze of green light under the combined magical assault of Quan Chi and Shang Tsung. Kano had found Sonya's still-convulsing body, and had stripped his dead nemesis's pants from her legs. As Lara watched, he gleefully undid his own fly, knife in hand. 

"Oh, my God," Lara whispered again. Kitana clutched the tomb raider's shoulder; she looked down again to see the princess's pleading, terrified eyes looking into her own. Behind her mask, Kitana's lips moved, but with her diaphragm vaporized by the laser blast, she couldn't force air over her vocal chords. Blinking back tears, Lara silently watched Kitana's eyes lose focus and begin drying out. Slowly, the tomb raider became aware that the only sounds she could hear were Frost's keening, and the wet sounds of what Kano was doing to Sonya's body. 

"Enkh gahl met-tolo," a deeply distorted voice said from behind her. Gently, Lara laid Kitana's body in the dust of the Outworld plain, and stood. The neckline of her blue-white leotard was torn, revealing the upper hemisphere of her left breast; her face was smudged with dirt; her hair was coming free of the bun; the button fly of her khaki shorts had been ripped apart, and replaced with knots of twine that allowed the tight shorts to slip halfway down her buttocks. Exhaustion in her heart and defeat in her eyes, Lara turned to face Quan Chi and Shang Tsung. 

"Reya hammnapto eech-agt," Tsung commented in his sibilant whisper. Lara stared at the pair for a long moment, then went for her pistols. Halfway out of their holsters, both weapons flashed a sallow green; when she pulled the triggers, one pistol aimed at each of the sorcerers, nothing happened. 

"Damn it all to hell," Lara gritted. 

"Ah, an Earthling," Tsung hissed. "Welcome to our realm--you would be the one called La-ra Croofit?" 

"La-ra, Croofit, that's me," the tomb raider agreed. Far above, Frost sobbed and weakly pushed with her feet at the spike that impaled her. 

"I believe the Earth woman appreciates your display, Shang Tsung," Chi laughed. 

"Fear not, little human," Shang Tsung giggled. "That fate, I reserve for those whose spirits I could not otherwise break." 

"This Earth woman is certainly not worthy to join those ranks," Quan Chi rumbled. "Still, what shall we do with her?" 

"Mayhap we should simply send her home?" Tsung suggested. 

"Stop it," Lara snarled, fists clenched. "Stop your _toying_ with me. Kill me however you like, damn you, just get it _over with!"_

"Ah, some spirit at last," Chi grinned. "It's not nearly so much fun, if they don't hate you while they watch you kill them." Lara howled and sank to her knees in the dust, pressing her palms to the sides of her head. It felt like her skull was being squeezed from all directions--no, worse! It felt like it was being _stretched,_ as if every atom in her head were being forced apart from its fellows. Groaning, she kicked and fell onto her side, body arching painfully as the two sorcerers cackled. 

_"Pleeeease!"_ Lara shrieked, jerking from side to side. All thought of anger, of resistance, of mourning for the horrible deaths of her friends disappeared in the blazing agony that was eating her skull. Rolling onto her shins, Lara screamed and hunched her head between her knees. Impossibly, the pain _increased;_ the tomb raider straightened up and bent backwards again, her entire body supported by her toes and the top of her head. Dimly, she could hear Shang Tsung and Quan Chi laughing; huffing in pain, she struggled to her feet and stood, chest heaving air in and out of her lungs in short, terrified shrieks. Pushed by internal pressure, her eyes bugged slightly, wider than they'd ever been in her entire life. Again, the agony grew; Lara let her hands drop to her sides and simply wailed at the sky, sobbing at the top of her lungs. 

With a fleshy splatter, her entire head suddenly exploded in a spray of blood, bone shards, hair, and brain. Some of the grey, lumpy flesh and blood-soaked locks settled on her shoulders, but most of it sprayed out in a six-meter sphere of gore. Her body, tensed in the rictus of pain Lara had died in, remained standing for more than ten seconds, quivering in place as blood fountained from the stump of her neck in time with her still-beating heart. Finally, it fell forward, stiff-limbed. The impact of landing kicked her heels up for a moment, but her muscles had finally gone slack, and her feet thudded into the dust a second after the rest of her body. 


	11. A Final Vignette

Lara blinked and peered down the short hallway in front of her, shadows blending granite flagstones into a misty grey. Somewhere far above--perhaps as far as a mile--the sun shone brightly on the jungle-covered ruins of a Mayan temple. Lara's research concerning certain legends had led her to discover a hidden entrance to a deeper labyrinth, which supposedly contained a massive calender stone forged of pure gold. Such an artifact would match the decor in her main living room quite nicely. 

The stone beneath her foot sank suddenly, no further than a centimeter. Instantly, Lara turned to run--too late. The floor ten feet before and behind her shattered like glass. Her frightened yell was cut short into a pained, liquid groan as she landed among the serrated spears that had lain hidden beneath the false floor for uncounted generations. 

Breath glubbed in and out at a panicked, frantic pace, and tears welled in her eyes as her shredded heart twittered madly against one of the many shanks of stone piercing her body. Gurgling, she tried to push herself up, but her right arm had been torn nearly all the way off, and one of the spears in her belly caught its serrations on her spine. One leg kicked weakly, with a thick spike piercing the hollow of her hip and protruding from her buttock; the other lay twisted at an unnatural angle by the fall. The last air in Lara's lungs bubbled out through the ruins of her shoulderblade; she began mouthing a silent prayer, but shock and blood loss stole her life before it was finished. 

---

The problem with cliches was that they were so very often based in fact. In the movies, when confronted by a monster, women _always_ scream. Lara had determined by the age of five that she would _never_ do so--that pause, those precious few seconds, never failed to get the woman killed. And so it was that much of Lara's last moments were filled with self-loathing. For years, she had been facing monsters that Hollywood could never dream of, and never once had she let the fear reach her throat. She was stronger than that; she was _better_ than that--and, by God, she was _not_ a cliche. But there are certain times when the impulses of the lizard brain cannot be ignored; moments when training and conditioning and experience give way, and raw instinct comes to the fore. 

When the tyrannosaurus rex burst through the fog and jungle two miles below the surface of the earth, Lara had dropped her shotgun and let loose a long, terrified shriek. And it had gotten her killed. Her scream--a beauty by Hollywood standards, long and full and holding nothing back, ended with a sickening crunch as the rex's maw clamped around her belly with the top half of her body filling its jaws. Its tongue pushed against her breasts and pinned her to the roof of its mouth, squeezing her breath out in a short grunt. Lips bared in a silent continuation of her scream, she kicked and thrashed against the ground outside, trying to wriggle back out, but she succeeded only in widening the gashes piercing her belly. With her torso held in place by its dry, pebbled tongue, the rex began to work its front teeth back and forth; it enjoyed the way its prey scratched and clutched inside its mouth when it did this, and Lara was too big for it to eat in one bite anyway. Drawing a breath of stale, dead air from the rex's own throat, Lara let out a hoarse gurgle as the dinosaur finally chewed her in half. Keening silently in terrified pain, she managed to force on hand out through the rex's jaws. The hand scrabbled spastically against the rex's lips as it turned her over with its tongue and brought its huge jaws to bear on her. Lara had one horrifying moment of ripping pain as its teeth crunched through her torso sideways, snapping her ribcage and tearing most of her head from her shoulders. 

Her hand hung loosely from its lips as the rex chewed her two more times, then sucked up inside as the lizard swallowed. Stooping forward, rex picked up Lara's lower body by her hips, slopping viscera against its chin. Bones snapped and flesh ripped, kicking her feet with the chewing motion; the king of the dinosaurs swallowed again and roared its triumph, then turned and lumbered into the hidden jungle. 

---

Teeth bared, Lara ran, the black leather of her catsuit sliding against her body. Somewhere behind her, American soldiers shouted and cursed as they searched for her. Behind her sunglasses, her eyes ran with tears; a pair of weeping wounds stitched fire through her gut with every step she took. The empty pistol in her hand was dead weight; she tossed it aside as she fled down the corridor. 

She had to get out, she knew, asteroid fragment or not. She was wounded, tired, and out of ammo--and an entire military complex was searching for her. If they caught her, they'd most likely torture her to death, trying to determine which foreign government she worked for; they'd never believe that she was simply an archeologist trying to save the world. Blood on the heels of her boots made her skid as she rounded the corner, but she quickly caught her balance and sprinted forward. Sudden, burning pain cut through her, and she tumbled to the floor. Had she been shot again? What was going on? Pushing herself up on her hands, she tried to get to her feet--but her legs didn't respond. Teeth bared in anger and panic, she rolled over to see what they'd done to her. 

At first, she didn't understand. A slop of internal organs had replaced her legs, and a woman's lower body, dressed in black leather, writhed on the ground several feet away, as if trying to run. 

"Oh..." she breathed as a dull ache settled in her lower torso. Blinking in shock, she twisted back onto her stomach and began pulling herself down the hall, stiff-armed. She had to escape, she had to find a first-aid kit. Her breath shivered in and out in breathy moans as she fought down panic. Behind her, her legs kicked and flumped against the wall, their skin-tight leather sheath showing red highlights from the nearly-invisible laser beam a yard above them. Held by their own weight, Lara's intestines dragged out into a twenty-foot tangle before she stopped, panting, with her head hanging. Above her, unseen, a mobile beam reached the top of its vertical sweep and hummed downward. Lara blearily tried to focus on the tip of her french-twisted ponytail as it swung mesmerizingly in and out of her field of vision. She jerked once as the laser beam cut down into the back of her head, and her shoulders gave a slight quiver. As it burnt through her cheekbones, the upper half of her head flopped forward as if on hinges and fell off, spilling the partly-cauterized upper hemisphere of her brain onto the stainless steel floor. The rest of her upper body swayed slightly, then collapsed. For a few minutes more, her heart pumped blood out of her ruined body, and her lungs dutifully inhaled and exhaled. Slowly, the motion ran down, then finally stopped.  


----  


Unless something drastic happens, this will be the last story in this vignette. One of my goals in writing these was to shock the reader, and repetition--such as these are beginning to display--is not the type of assault on the senses which I wish to effect. Thank-you for your unexpected praise.  



End file.
